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ORTHODOX 



CONGREGATIONALISM 



AND 



THE SECTS. 



BY 



REV. DORUS CLARKE, D. D. 



tl It hath so much force as there is force 

in the reason of it." 

Richard Mather. 




BOSTON: 

LEE AND SHEPARD, PUBLISHERS. 

NEW YORK: 

LEE, SHEPARD AND DILLINGHAM, 

Nos. 47 and 49 Greene Street. 

1871. 



^ 



O 



Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1S71, 

By DORUS CLARKE, 

n the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 



Cambridge : Printed by Welch, Bigelow, & Co. 



Stereotyped at the Boston Stereotype Foundry, 
, 11) Spring Lane. 



At a regular meeting of the Suffolk North Association 
of Congregational Ministers, held at Charlestown, February 
21, 1871, the following Resolution was unanimously passed, 
viz. : — 

The Suffolk North Association having listened to an Essay 
on Congregationalism, by the Rev. Dorus Clarke, D. D., which 
met their general approbation, desire to express the opinion, 
that it is a clear, compact and comprehensive view of the sub- 
ject, and that its publication at this time would be especially 
fitted to aid the ministry and the churches in giving a correct 
view of our polity, and of its relation to other evangelical 
denominations. 

Attest, 

Abijah R. Baker, Moderator. 

Lucius R. Eastman, Jr., Scribe. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER FIRST. 

The Special Grounds of Orthodox Congregation- 
alism 9 

1. Its Etymology. 

2. It is a Transcript of the New Testament Pattern. 

3. Its Historical Continuity from the Apostles down to 

the Present Day. 

CHAPTER SECOND. 

Causes op its Progress being less Rapid than 

that of some of the sects 68 

1. The injudicious Civil Policy of the Early Settlers of 

New England. 

2. The Superior Tact and supposed Greater Advantages 

of some of the Sects, 
(a.) Methodists. 
(5.) Baptists. 

5 



6 CONTENTS. 

(c.) Episcopalians. 
(d.) Presbyterians. 

3. Idiosyncrasies, or Traits of Mind, which more natu- 

rally affiliate with Error than with Truth. 

4. Partial Unsoundness of some Congregationalists. 

5. Immigration. 

CHAPTER THIRD. 

Things to be done to promote Orthodox Congre- 
gationalism 149 

1. Improvements in Public Worship. 

2. Return to the Doctrinal Standards. 

3. Frequent and Pure Revivals of Religion. 

4. Cultivation of the highest Social Life. 



CONCLUSION. 

Its Noble Record and its Ultimate Triumph. . . 1G3 



ORTHODOX CONGREGATIONALISM AND 
THE SECTS. 



What is Congregationalism? It is a form of 
Church polity. And what is a Church polity ? 
It is the costume in which a body of Christians 
perform their work for Christ. It is a means to 
the end, and not the end itself. Just so far as 
it is made the end, and not the means to the end, 
it is sectarianism. The great end of Christianity 
is to save the souls of men. This is, or it should 
be, the great end and aim of all Christians. 

If this be a correct definition or description of a 
church polity, then that is the best which enables 
the Church of Christ to perform its work the most 
easily, the most intelligently, and the most suc- 
cessfully. Admitting this to be the true crite- 

7 



8 ORTHODOX CONGREGATIONALISM 

rion of the comparative excellence of the various 
forms of ecclesiastical polity, it would seem that 
the best form might be ascertained with little 
difficulty. But since each denomination, in its 
turn, claims that the decision is in its own favor 
and against all others, it becomes necessary to 
subject the matter to other and more crucial tests. 



AND THE SECTS. 9 



CHAPTER PIEST. 

THE SPECIAL GROUNDS OF ORTHODOX CON- 
GREGATIONALISM. 

What, then, are the special or concrete reasons 
on which Orthodox Congregationalism grounds 
its claim to be considered the best polity of the 
Christian church ? 

One of these grounds is etymological. The 
term Congregationalism is derived from Congrega- 
tion ; that is, a congregation of Christians is, 
under Christ, their Great Head, the original and 
the only source of power. The authority is 
within itself. It is an autocracy. It is the the- 
ory of Congregationalism that a meeting of Chris- 
tian believers, voluntarily called and organized 
for the purpose of doing church acts and enjoy- 
ing church privileges, is, of itself, a real and true 
Church of Christ. It may and it should have the 
recognition and cordial co-operation of all the 
churches scattered over the earth ; but this indi- 
vidual congregation, or company of believers, has 



10 ORTHODOX CONGREGATIONALISM 

within itself, and not by virtue of its connection 
with others, all the power which is necessary in 
the case ; and this congregation has not only, in 
itself, all the power that is necessary to do all 
acts which it is competent for a church to do, but 
by its very isolation and independence it admits 
the right of no other earthly power to intervene, 
and overawe or revise or veto its doings. It is 
a government of the people, and by the people, 
and for the people. " Each particular church, " 
says the Rev. Dr. Arnold, though he was an 
Episcopalian, " is an authority to the members 
of that church/ 7 * 

Congregationalism, then, places all church 
power in the hands of the people or the Congrega- 
tion, and thus it brings all church acts more 
closely home to the body of believers and to the 
individual members thereof, than any other known 
form of church polity. In no associated capacity 
do the acts of the body become so nearly personal 
acts. Their acts are as nearly personal acts, as 
it is possible for such acts to be in society. 
Besides, Congregationalism exactly meets the 
instincts and cravings of all men for personal 
liberty. Every man loves freedom, — this polity, 

* Life of Thomas Arnold, D. D., p. 41. 



AND THE SECTS. 11 

and this only, gives it to him. Every man wishes 
to be master of himself, — this system, unlike 
all others, allows him that privilege. It is in 
harmony, then, with the deepest desires of our 
nature, — with the instincts of every human 
heart. 

The very term Congregationalism, then, shows 
the origin and the nature of this svstem. It is 
the simplest form of polity known to history. 
No form can be more simple. It is upon this 
normal fact, that it founds one of its claims to be 
the very best polity for all ages and all nations. 

For several years after our Pilgrim Fathers 
came to this country, their churches were called 
"The Churches of Christ." They had no de- 
nominational name, just as the Apostolic Churches 
had no denominational name. They had no such 
name, because they were not a sect. They had 
no such name, because they were the true church- 
es of Christ. The purity of their faith and the 
severity of their trials, proved that they were of 
the apostolic stamp. In process of time, the 
title Congregational was forced upon them by the 
necessities of the case. The congregation, or the 
body of believers, were accustomed to do all the 
church business, and hence it was natural and 



12 ORTHODOX CONGREGATIONALISM 

proper that they should assume the name Congre- 
gationalists, when, by the rise of the Baptist and 
the Episcopal sects, they were obliged to adopt 
some title to distinguish them from those sec- 
tarians. 

Other church polities, — all other church poli- 
ties have other origins. They have never claimed 
and do not now claim, that they originated in the 
congregation. Indeed, they not only make no 
such claim, but they reject the theory that the 
congregation or body of believers, is the proper 
source or embodiment of church power, or is 
competent to do church acts. Congregationalism, 
then, has this glory exclusively. " No man 
taketh it from " us. This crowning excellence 
of Congregationalism is, in the view of all other 
forms of church government, its crowning objec- 
tion, and therefore it has and can have no rival 
claimants. 

The especial point then, on which Congrega- 
tionalism differs from all other forms of church 
polity, is, that the churches are competent to 
govern } — all other plans hold that they must be 
governed. The aristocratic and the hierarchical 
theories in the church, like the aristocratic and 
monarchical theories in the State, are built on the 



AND THE SECTS. 13 

assumption that the people are ignoramuses or 
wiseacres, — that they are incompetent to do 
their own thinking and acting ; and that some- 
body else who claims to have more knowledge, 
whether he has it or not, must step in and per- 
form their work for them. This theory Congre- 
gationalism in the Churches and Republicanism 
in the State wholly repudiate, and both assert 
the ability, the right, and the duty of self-govern- 
ment. 

But what is Orthodox Congregationalism ? Here 
appears the poverty of language, when we at- 
tempt to give that a denominational name, which 
was never intended to have a denominational 
name. By the phrase it is not meant that the 
" Congregationalism " is " orthodox," but that the 
Faith which underlies it and is historically con- 
nected with it, is " orthodox. " " English unde- 
fined " has no convenient name for this body of 
Christians. Words here refuse to perform their 
office. They seem to protest against calling 
" the Church of the Living God, the pillar and 
ground of the truth," by any sectarian appella- 
tion. 

But this Faith and Polity must have some title. 
We have therefore to resort to an awkward 



14 ' ORTHODOX CONGREGATIONALISM 

periphrasis to distinguish it. Hence it is called 
" Orthodox Congregationalism" The Sects have 
no such difficulty. Each of them has some char- 
acteristic, which broadly distinguishes it from the 
others, and from the unsectarian churches. Hence 
the terms, " Episcopalians," "Baptists," "Meth- 
odists," "Presbyterians," " Universalists," "Uni- 
tarians," etc., exactly indicate their peculiarities 
respectively. " Orthodox Congregationalists," 
alone, have to be content with a long, incorrect 
appellative. 

The Fathers of New England, — those modern 
revivers of the faith and polity of the apostles 
and primitive Christians, — were unequalled in 
their day for the soundness of their doctrinal 
belief. This, "in their heart's just estimate," 
far exceeded in importance the very best form of 
church government. It was for this that they 
suffered so much. It was this, which was so 
much dearer to them than life. But their sound 
dogmatic faith was the result of their true con- 
version to God, and of their intelligent and emi- 
nent piety. 

They were regenerated men, — regenerated, 
not by any improvement of morals or manners ; 
nor by any form of baptism or rite of confirma- 



AND THE SECTS. 15 

tion, by whomsoever administered ; nor by any 
cultivation of their religious nature ; nor by any 
priestly absolutions or manipulations ; nor by any 
austerities or penances ; nor by any "correlation 
of forces ; " but by " the renewing* of the Holy 
Ghost." " Not by works of righteousness which 
we have done, but according to His mercy He 
saveth us, by the washing of regeneration and 
renewing of the Holy Ghost, which He shed on 
us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour." 
It was the love of Christ, as the result of regen- 
erating grace, consciously felt by those holy men, 
which was the root of their orthodox belief, and 
the mainspring of their sacrifices for the enjoy- 
ment of the rights of conscience. Orthodox 
Congregationalism is, therefore, but another name 
for the soundest religious faith and the holiest 
walk with God, as well as for the simplest polity. 
This title, though grammatically indefinite, is now, 
by common consent, the nom de plume of this 
body of Christians. 

But no class of Christians ever took greater 
pains to form a Confession of Faith, which should 
be absolutely correct ; and they probably suc- 
ceeded, so far as the then existing knowledge of 
biblical interpretation would permit. 



16 ORTHODOX CONGREGATIONALISM 

Cotton Mather says : " The churches of New 
England took all the occasions imaginable to make 
all the world know, that in the doctrinal part of 
religion, they have agreed entirely with the Re- 
formed Churches of Europe ; but as a further 
demonstration hereof, when there was a Synod 
assembled at Cambridge, September 30, 1648, even 
that Synod which framed, agreed and published 
the Platform of Church Principles, there was a 
most unanimous vote passed in these words : 
' This Synod, having perused and considered the 
Confession of Faith by the late reverend Assem- 
bly in England, do judge it to be very holy, ortho- 
dox, and judicious in all matters of faith, and do 
therefore freely and fully consent thereunto for 
the substance thereof, Only in those things that 
have respect to church government and discipline, 
we refer ourselves to the platform of church dis- 
cipline agreed upon by this present assembly.' " 

Again, he says : " Besides the vote of the 
New England churches for a concurrence with the 
Confession of Faith made by the Assembly at 
Westminster, a Synod assembled at Boston, May 
12, 1C80, whereof Mr. Increase Mather was mod- 
erator, consulted and considered, what was fur- 
ther to be done for such a Confession. Accord- 



AND THE SECTS. 17 

ingly, the Confession of Faith consented by the 
Congregational Churches of England in a Synod 
met at the Savoy, which, excepting a few vari- 
ations, was the same with what was agreed by 
the reverend Assembly at Westminster, and after- 
wards by the General Assembly of Scotland ; was 
twice publicly read, examined, and approved ; 
and some small variations made from that of the 
Savoy, in compliance with that at Westminster ; 
and so, after such collations, but no contentions, 
voted and printed, as the FoAth of New England. 
But they chose to express themselves in the words 
of those assemblies ; that so (as they speak in 
their preface) we might not only ' with one 
heart/ but ' with one mouth, glorifio God and 
our Saviour Jesus Christ/ " * 

Logically and naturally, then, do the Congre- 
gational form of church government and the 
Evangelical system of faith, grow out of intelli- 
gent, personal piety. They are both evolved from 
intimate communion with Christ. Such intimate 
communion evolves no Sects, but only the true 
Church of Christ. Nothing sinister, or narrow, or 
exclusive, or worldly can spring from such a 
source. Sectarianism originates in some worldly 

* Magnalia, vol. ii. pp. 155-0. 
2 



18 ORTHODOX CONGREGATIONALISM 

motive, or is largely the result of natural temper- 
ament or of a perverted education. Love to 
Christ never suggests the idea of earning some- 
thing by the self-denial of going into " the waters 
of baptism, " nor the desire ,to exclude fellow- 
believers from His table, nor the love of cler- 
ical preferment, nor noisy ejaculations in public 
prayer, nor any pompous rites and ceremonies. 
But close fellowship with Christ, as a Personal 
Redeemer and Beloved Friend, works out spon- 
taneously into a correct Faith and Polity. Its 
natural outward expression is Orthodox Congre- 
gationalism. 

Secondly. Orthodox Congregationalism claims 
to be the best polity, because it is evidently a fac- 
simile of the New Testament pattern. The idea 
has been advanced, that the New Testament does 
not indicate any church polity whatever, and that 
the matter is left entirely to human discretion. 
But this theory is not correct. The New Testa- 
ment has something to say on the subject. The 
matter is not ignored, — it is distinctly recog- 
nized ; and what Christ and His apostles say 
about it is as binding as the Ten Commandments. 
Nor can it be reasonably supposed, that the 
church polity, outlined by the New Testament, is 



AND THE SECTS. 19 

so very recondite, as to be eliminated only by the 
most scholarly investigation. That polity, what- 
ever it is, must be expected to lie upon the sur- 
face of the record, inasmuch as it was designed 
for universal use. It is a fact admitted by all, 
that the polity indicated by the sacred writers, 
is nowhere in the New Testament elaborated into 
a system. There is no professed treatise on the 
subject. All that is said about it is isolated and 
fragmentary ; nothing structural and complete. 
These scattered indications must then be brought 
together, and interpreted by the soundest canons 
of exegesis, by the obvious intent of a church 
polity, and by its adaptation to society in its 
various stages of culture and under all forms of 
civil government, and to the great work of spread- 
ing the Gospel over the earth. 

The extreme simplicity of the polity of the 
New Testament finds its counterpart only in the 
proverbial simplicity of this system. Congrega- 
tionalism holds that the Christian church is a vol- 
untary association of believing men and women 
for church purposes, and that it is fully compe- 
tent to manage its own affairs. And there is 
nothing sacerdotal in it. It rejects an earthly 
priesthood, and all penances, sacrifices, genuflex- 



20 ORTHODOX CONGREGATIONALISM 

ions, confessionals, absolutions, and other priestly 
appliances for shriving the soul. It holds, in 
stead, " that we have a Great High Priest that 
is passed into the heavens — Jesus the Son of 
God ; " " who needeth not daily, as other high 
priests, to offer up sacrifices, first for His own 
sins, and then for the people's ; for this He did 
once, when He offered up Himself." 

For the institution of the ministry, Congrega- 
tionalism finds authority in the fact, that, when 
" certain prophets and teachers " at Antioch 
:l ministered to the Lord and fasted, the Holy 
Ghost said, ' Separate me Barnabas and Saul for 
the work whereunto I have called them. 7 And 
when they had fasted and prayed, and laid their 
hands on them, they sent them away. So they, 
being sent forth by the Holy Ghost, departed." 
By the same simple and solemn rites are Congre- 
gational ministers ordained and set apart to their 
work. The theory is, that the clergy must be 
" called by the Holy Ghost," and have evidence of 
it which is satisfactory to their own minds, and that 
the "laying on of hands" by the brethren, or by 
the neighboring pastors as their agents, is simply 
a public recognition of their call to the work and 
of their fitness for it. The " laying on of the 






AND THE SECTS. 21 

hands of the presbytery," and the " ordaining 
of elders in every city/' did not denote the com- 
munication of any holy influence, but were ap- 
propriate acts or votes of the apostles, denoting 
their confidence in their new associates, and of 
their cordial admission of them to " the work 
where unto they were called." Congregational- 
ists, therefore, regard such acts simply as public 
recognitions of qualification for the work of the 
ministry. 

They reject the theory of the Episcopate; 
whether Romish or English, that the " imposi- 
tion of hands " imparts some esoteric influence, 
which descends down through Episcopal fingers 
from the apostles to the end of the world. The 
theory of the Episcopalians, that the power of 
ordination resides alone in their bishops and that 
it can be transmitted only by them, is blocked by 
the fact, that instead of observing the apostolic 
direction, — " the same commit thou to faithful 
men," — they have often attempted to commit it 
to unfaithful men and to incompetent men — to 
men who were unable " to teach others also." In 
all those cases, and they have been numerous, 
the " apostolic " current was broken. The " insu- 
lation " was not perfect. It is just as impossible 



22 ORTHODOX CONGREGATIONALISM 

to transmit the supposed holy current through a 
bad man or a, good blockhead, as to send a mes- 
sage through the Atlantic without a cable. 

This theory is also seriously embarrassed by 
the fact, that Cranmer, Archbishop of Canter- 
bury, and Bonner, Bishop of London, both took 
out commissions to ordain from the crown. 
Henry the Eighth, probably the vilest man who 
has occupied the English throne, being excom- 
municated by the Pope, assumed to himself the 
supremacy of the Church of England, and, as a 
layman, and contrary to the " apostolic succes- 
sion 7; theory, issued commissions to ordain. 
Thus was broken again, as had been done sev- 
eral times before, all "historical continuity 11 be- 
tween modern Episcopacy and the apostles 

But this theory is in another trouble Upon 
the accession of Mary to the throne, the Church 
of England reverted to Popery, and as a distinct 
church ceased to exist. The present Episcopal 
Church, therefore, lost again all connection with 
the apostles. Then, under the reign of Elizabeth, 
another Episcopal Church was set up in England, 
and the Queen assumed the supremacy of the 
church, and, like Henry, claimed and exercised 
the right to say who should have the power to 



AND THE SECTS. 23 

ordain, and men were ordained outside of the 
claimed historical line. All the present Episcopal 
bishops have, therefore, derived their " exclusive 
right of ordination " from Miss Lizzie Tudor. 
Thus break after break, and chasm after chasm 
unfortunately occur between the diocesan bishops 
and " the glorious company of the apostles." 
Hence, according to their theory, the present dio- 
cesan bishops in England and in this country have 
no power to ordain, and have nut been ordained 
themselves.* 

But woes continue to multiply. This theory 
is, if possible, still more effectually blocked by 
the fact, that, for three hundred years after the 
apostles, there was no Episcopate at all, and no 

* John Wesley said, " Apostolical succession is a fable, 
which no man ever did, or ever can prove." 

Chillingworth said, " I am fully persuaded there hath been 
no such succession." 

Bishop Stillingfleet declares that " this succession is as 
muddy as the Tiber itself." 

Bishop Hoadley asserts, " It hath not pleased God, in His 
providence, to keep up any proof ot the least probability, 
or moral possibility, of a regular uninterrupted succession ; 
but there is a general appearance, and, humanly speaking, 
a certainty to the contrary, and that the succession hath 
often been interrupted." 

Archbishop Whately affirms that " there is not a minister 
in Christendom who is able to trace up, with an approach 
to certainty, his spiritual pedigree." 



24 ORTHODOX CONGREGATIONALISM 

Episcopal Church. Out of nothing can anything 
come except by creative power ? The churches, 
during that period, were called the " churches of 
Christ/ 7 and their form of ordination and govern- 
ment was independent or congregational. To 
get through, or around, or over this fact, has 
been the crux of Rome for twelve hundred years, 
and of England for three hundred years. Much 
history has been " made to order/' both at Rome 
and in England, to meet this exigency. Some 
time ago, a meeting of clergy was held in Lon- 
don to devise ways and means to lay a pavement 
of wooden blocks around St. Paul's Cathedral. 
Various plans were proposed, considered, and 
abandoned ; at last, the Rev. Sydney Smith 
rose, and said, " Mr. Chairman, if the Bench of 
Bishops would only lay their heads together, the 
thing will be done/' But the " Bench of Bish- 
ops " have often " laid their heads together ;? to 
support their claim to the exclusive right of 
ordination, while the churches have continued 
to flourish under clergymen set apart by Congre- 
gational hands, and the earth, with surprising 
equanimity, has continued to move forward in 
its orbit, and the other planets have manifested 
no unusual perturbations. 



AND THE SECTS. 25 

For the character of the ministry, Congrega- 
tionalism refers to the Epistles of Paul to Timo- 
thy and Titus ; and for the parity of the minis- 
try, it appeals to the fact, that the terms "pas- 
tor," "bishop,"' "elder," and " presbj^ter " are 
used convertibly in the New Testament, thus 
placing them all on the same plane of official 
dignity, or, rather, they are used to designate 
one and the same officer. " That the name 
enlawoTioi, or bishops, was synonymous with that 
of presbyters, is clearly evident from those pas- 
sages of Scripture, where both appellations are 
used interchangeably (Acts xx. ; comp. v. 11 with 
v. 28 ; Ep. to Titus, ch. i. v. 5 with v. 7), and from 
those where the office of deacon is named imme- 
diately after that of bishop, so that between 
these two church offices there could not be still 
a third intervening one, (Ep. to Philippians i. 1 ; 
1 Tim. iii. 1 and 8). This interchange in the use 
of two appellations shows that they were perfect- 
ly identical." * " In those early days titles 
sprung out of realities, and were not yet mere 
hierarchical classifications." f 

* Neander's History of the Church, vol. i. p. 184. 
t The Greek Testament, 2 Cor. ii. 6, by Kev. Henry 
Alford, D.D., Dean of Canterbury. 



26 ORTHODOX CONGREGATIONALISM 

For the only other office in the churches, 
namely, that of deacons, Congregationalism finds 
authority in the sixth chapter of the Acts of the 
Apostles, where it is stated that " the multitude " 
of the disciples, being called together for that 
purpose, did, in open meeting, and by the popu- 
lar vote, make choice of seven men to be " dea- 
cons," not to preach the Gospel, but, as the rec- 
ord expressly affirms, " to serve tables," that so 
the clergy might be relieved from the secular 
care of the churches, and be able to "give them- 
selves continually to prayer and to the ministry 
of the word." It is also noteworthy here, that 
the mode of ascertaining the popular voice was 
by raising the hand, or by a show of hands. This 
is evident by the Greek word zeigoiovyft-ig, 2 Cor. 
viii. 19, which indicates the manner in which the 
churches usually voted, and in which they did 
vote when they chose " the brother/ 7 whom they 
would have "to travel" with the Apostle Paul 
Observe, too, how carefully even the apostles 
themselves abstain in the choice of the deacons, 
from the least encroachment upon the preroga- 
tives of the church. " Thev agree among them- 
selves," says Lange, " that a change is needed, 
and then communicate the result of their dcliber- 



AND THE SECTS. 27 

ations to the church. They called unto them, 
not simply a committee of the church, nor even 
the original nucleus, the ' one hundred and 
twenty/ but the whole multitude of the dis- 
ciples ; that is to say, all the male members. 
But they do not undertake to nominate the par- 
ticular persons who are to be invested with the 
new office ; they ask the church to select suitable 
persons, and the members did select the seven 
deacons/ 7 * Those who were subsequently in- 
trusted with the diaconate,f as it was called, do 
not seem to have taken any part of the mission- 
ary work of the apostles, as did Stephen and 
Philip of the first deacons, but devoted them- 
selves, as the representatives of the charity of 
the churches, to the care of the sick and the 
needy. 

For the independence of the churches, Congre- 
gation alists point to the isolated, unconnected 
condition of the early churches : " Greet the 
church that is in their house ; " " Salute Nym- 
ph as, and the church that is in his house ; ?; 
Phebe was " a servant of the church at Cen- 

* Lange's Commentary on Acts vi. 2. 

f Rom. xii. 7, diuxovia; Phil. i. 1, dianovuig. 



28 ORTHODOX CONGREGATIONALISM 

chrea ; " the Apostle Paul wrote letters to the 
churches in Rome, Corinth, Ephesus, Philippi, 
Thessalonica and Galatia ; and the Apostle John 
was directed to write to the " angels " or pas- 
tors of the seven churches in Asia. We also 
read of the church at Jerusalem, the church at 
Antioch, etc. No bond of connection appears 
to have existed between these widely scattered 
Christian congregations, save that of love to 
Christ, love to each other, and mutual desires 
for each other's welfare. To Christ, their much- 
loved Head, they acknowledged the most implicit 
and affectionate subjection, but none to any earth- 
ly power. In short, the primitive churches were 
Christian republics, and under Christ they "were 
a law unto themselves. " The fiction had not 
then arisen of an impersonal Church distinct from 
the various local churches. 

When Congregationalists need advice, they find 
authority for Ecclesiastical Councils in the fifteenth 
chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, which states 
minutely how the first Council was called, and 
what was its Eesult. " It did not issue anything 
like positive decrees, but confined itself to recom- 
mending a compromise, which had no obligatory 



AND THE SECTS. 29 

character." * It was simply advisory, and so are 
the Results of Congregational Councils. 

When, unhappily, Congregationalists have a 
case of heresy or immorality which requires dis- 
cipline, they find, in the eighteenth chapter of 
Matthew and in the second Epistle to the Cor- 
inthians, the mode of proceeding pointed out 
with great particularity, and their practice is 
governed accordingly. They find that if all 
private efforts to obtain satisfaction fail, the 
case is to be referred to the church, or, as 
Lange says, "to the meeting of believers, 
whether it be large or small." And Alford, him- 
self an Episcopal dignitary, concedes all which 
Congregationalists claim, when he says, " that 
dxxlqcria cannot mean the church as represented 
by her rulers, as appears by verses 19, 20, where 
any collection of believers is gifted with the pow- 
er of deciding such cases. Nothing could be 
further from the spirit of our Lord's command, 
than proceedings in what were oddly enough 
called ' Ecclesiastical Courts/ " f 

With regard to what the Apostle Paul says 

* Early Years of Christianity, by Bey. Edmond De 
Pressense, D. D., p. 334. 

t The Greek Testament, by Rev. Henry Alford, D. D., 
in loc. 



30 ORTHODOX CONGREGATIONALISM 

about " the punishment which was inflicted by 
the many, or the nleiovec, upon the incestuous 
person in the church at Corinth, Lange says, 
" It could not have been done by the eldership, 
but by the majority of the church." * This is 
further evident from the fact, that the Corinthian 
Church were to excommunicate that offender 
when they were ''gathered together." Here, then, 
is conclusive proof that cases of discipline were 
decided, not by a vestry or session, but by the 
popular vote, and doubtless by a show of hands, 
as is now the custom in the Congregational 
churches. 

These few statements are a synthesis of all 
that the New Testament says upon the matter 
of Church Polity ; and are not the Congregational 
usages approximately, if not exactly, a transcript 
of the New Testament pattern ? Indeed, it may 
be asked, whether, with the present advanced 
knowledge of biblical exegesis, it is possible to 
construct a polity more in harmony with that 
which is indicated by Jesus Christ and His 
Apostles ? Everything about the Congregational 
usages is natural. In the interpretation of the 
New Testament, no point is strained here, and 

* Lange's Commentary, in loc. 



AND THE SECTS. 31 

none cut off there, to accommodate it to some 
preconceived theory. Congregationalism is no 
Procrustean bed, to which the Scriptures must 
at any rate be made to fit. These few indices 
of the Scriptural polity, Congregationalism ac- 
cepts in all their unconstrained naturalness, and 
on this basis its entire system is constructed. 
For this most irrefragable reason, it claims to 
be the very best form of church order. It is, 
as nearly as can now be conceived, the primor- 
dial polity of the Christian Church. 

Thirdly. Orthodox Congregationalism makes 
this claim because it is the only historical con- 
tinuity of the polity of the New Testament. The 
Romish and the Episcopal sects hold that their 
hierarchies are the hierarchies of Peter and Paul. 
But an unforced construction of the New Testa- 
ment shows, as we have seen, that there were no 
hierarchical establishments in their days. If, then, 
Peter and Paul set up no hierarchies, they can 
have no successors. The jure divino pretensions 
of Episcopacy, once flaunted with so much assur- 
ance in the face of Christendom,* have of late 

* Times have changed since Bishop Hobart, of New York, 
in the plenitude of his grace, consigned over all "Dissen- 
ters to the uncovenanted mercies of God ! " 



32 ORTHODOX CONGREGATIONALISM 

assumed a very subdued, and even deprecatory 
tone ; and for this reason, that the most thor- 
ough modern research into mediaeval and patristic 
church history, and the most scientific biblical 
exegesis have successfully challenged those pre- 
tensions, and have relegated the benefits of the 
argument from "continuity " into the hands of 
the Congregationalists. They are found to be 
the only lineal descendants of the apostles. But 
they do not claim that their polity can be traced 
back, historically, by an unbroken chain, to the 
apostolic age. That cannot be done by any de- 
nomination.* But they do claim a historical con- 
nection with the apostles, on the ground of a 
oneness of principles. No continuity of sect is 
necessary, but a continuity of principles only. 

Mosheim, who wrote to serve the interest of 
no party, says, " During the greater part of the 
second century, all the churches continued to be, 

* The Rev. George Punchard, in his able and learned 
" History of Congregationalism," has shown how nearly 
Congregationalists can make out an unbroken historical 
connection with the primitive churches, through the Pauli- 
cians, the Luciferians, the Donatists, and the Novations of 
the early Christian centuries. Those historical facts, how- 
ever, rather serve to show, that liberty in the churches at- 
tempted, in those several cases, to assert itself, though not 
exactly in the Congregational form. 



AND THE SECTS. 33 

as at the first, independent of each other. Each 
church was a kind of little state, governed 
by its own laws, which were enacted or at least 
sanctioned by the people. At first the bishops did 
not deny that they were merely the representa- 
tives of their churches ; but, by little and little, 
they made higher pretensions, and maintained 
that power was given them by Christ himself to 
dictate rules of faith and conduct to the people. 
Hence originated Metropolitans, Patriarchs, and 
ultimately a Prince of Patriarchs, the Roman 
Pontiff. " * 

John Eliot, the Apostle so called, was perhaps 
as remarkable for his learning as for his devoted- 
ness to Christ, and he says, " that no approved 
writers, for the space of two hundred years after 
Christ, make any mention of any other organical, 
visible, professing church, but that only which is 
Congregational." f 

Pierre Jurieu, in his learned work, — " Traite 
de P Unite de PEglise," — affirms, "that the apos- 
tolical churches lived not in any confederation for 
mutual dependence. The grand equipage of Met- 
ropolitans, of Primates, of Exarchs, of Patriarchs, 

* Mosheim's Eccl. Hist., London edition, 1847. pp. 62, 63. 
t Mather's Magnalia, vol. i. p. 489. 
3 



34 ORTHODOX CONGREGATIONALISM 

was yet unknown ; nor does it any more appear 
to us that the churches had then their provincial, 
national, and oecumenical synods ; every church was 
its own mistress, and independent of any other." 

Dr. Neander explicitly affirms that " the prim- 
itive churches were democratic," and that "the 
monarchical form of government was not suited 
to the Christian community of spirit." 

Mil man, one of the highest English authorities, 
says, " In their polity, the Grecian churches were 
a federation of republics, as were the settlements of 
the Jews. Each church was an absolutely inde- 
pendent community ; " and, on the other hand, he 
affirms, that " Latin Christianity " or the Chris- 
tianity at Rome, " had an irresistible tendency 
towards monarchy." * 

Archbishop Whately, himself an Episcopalian, 
in his "Annotations" on Bacon's Essays, makes 
this remarkable concession which is fatal to the 
Episcopal claim of " historical continuity," that 
"the apostles founded Christian churches, but 
they were all quite independent of each other. " *)' 
No better testimony than this can be produced, 
that the independence of the Congregational 

* Latin Christianity, vol. i. pp. 21 and 41. 
f Annotations, p. 26. 



AND THE SECTS. 35 

Churches is precisely the independence of the 
churches founded by the Apostles. 

Near the close of the second century, the first 
symptoms of defection from the simple republi- 
canism of the apostolic churches and of a ten- 
dency towards centralization, made their appear- 
ance. Those infringements of the rights of the 
churches gradually assumed more serious pro- 
portions, and the Novatians in A. D. 251, the 
Donatists in 311, and the Luciferians and iErians 
in 363, attempted to stem the torrent of clerical 
encroachments, but their spasmodic and discon- 
nected efforts were in vain. 

During the third and fourth centuries, the 
distinction of bishops from presbyters and the 
gradual development of the monarchico-Episcopal 
Church government began to appear, and also 
the formation of a sacerdotal caste, as opposed 
to the evangelical idea of the priesthood. It 
was in that period that, as Milman says, " Po- 
pery grew up in silence and obscurity." By and 
by, its efforts to suppress freedom of thought and 
personal independence became more open and 
avowed, and the independence of the churches 
fought a hard battle with high church claims, 
till, in the year 606, the first Pope was pro- 



36 ORTHODOX CONGREGATIONALISM 

< 

claimed at Eome, and the right of private judg- 
ment in religious and political matters was 
overwhelmed by pontifical oppression. Except- 
ing the efforts of the Paulicians in 660 to restore 
the primitive faith, the only remains of freedom, 
for six centuries thereafter, were found among the 
Waldenses or Vaudois, who have been not inap- 
propriately termed " The Israel of the Alps." 
" It may be said that there were no churches in 
the Alps in the time of the Apostles, but the 
apostolic churches did not die with the Apostles. 
In the era of the martyrs the seeds of Christian- 
ity were sown all over Italy. The Vaudois did 
not mean any particular sect, but were the 
Churches of the Valleys. 71 * 

They w^ere " the chosen people of God," — 
the depositaries of civil and religious freedom 
during the long night of the Middle Ages, — 
when Popery, like a nightmare, oppressed, with 
grim satisfaction, the intellect, the enterprise, the 
liberties and the hopes of the world. They kept 
the coals of freedom alive on their altars, in the 
inaccessible fastnesses of Savoy. The " slaught- 
ered saints," of whom Milton tells us in his 
noble sonnet, and whose "blood," shed by the 

* Israel of the Alps, by Alexis Muston, D. D. 



AND THE SECTS. 37 

emissaries of Rome, he calls upon the "Lord" 
to "avenge," were numbered by thousands dur- 
ing the slow progress of five centuries of perse- 
cution, but the primitive faith was heroically 
maintained to the end. 

Outside of that isolated and devoted band of 
Christians, — the true successors of the Apostles 
in their faith and trials, — the first note of liber- 
ty, in modern times, was sounded by Wycliffe in 
England in. 1380, and the echoes of that note 
were heard in Germany, when Luther threw his 
inkstand at the head of the devil, nailed his the- 
ses to the door of the Wittemberg Church, and 
said to Tetzel, "Your indulgences are no letters 
of credit on Heaven, but flash notes on the Bank 
of Humbug, and you know it." Hooper reechoed 
that note, when, being appointed Bishop of Glou- 
cester, he refused to be consecrated in the vest- 
ments of the Anglican and Romish priesthood, 
lest it should savor of connivance at Popish su- 
perstitions. 

According to Skeat's " History of Free Church- 
es in England," Richard Fitz was the first pastor 
of the first Independent Church in that kingdom. 
They held, with the early disciples, that the 
church is a purely spiritual association ; that it 



38 ORTHODOX CONGREGATIONALISM 

has power to choose its own teachers and to 
regulate its own affairs, and that it should be 
entirely separate from the world and its rulers. 
This made them extremely unpopular in a corrupt 
age ; gave mortal offence to the ruling powers ; 
afforded opportunity for charges of disloyalty and 
sedition ; and awakened the wrath of an intolerant 
court and hierarchy. " They were obliged to wor- 
ship in secret places, — in ships moored in the 
river Thames, in obscure corners of the city, 
and in the woods and fields which surrounded 
London and some other towns. 77 * 

To Eobert Browne belongs the honor of first 
setting forth, in writing, the scheme of Free 
Church Government. Eobert Browne was a 
clergyman of the diocese of Norwich in 1580, 
and he loudly declaimed against the ceremonies 
of the Established Church, and called upon the 
people to come out and be separate. He 
organized a church on the plan of strict Inde- 
pendency. Though he afterwards apostatized 
and returned to Episcopacy, many of his follow- 
ers did separate themselves from the Established 
Church, and by way of reproach they were called 
"Separatists/ 7 or " Brownists. 77 

* The Pilgrim Fathers, by Benjamin Scott, F. R. A. S., 
Chamberlain of the City of London. 



AND THE SECTS. 39 

Such was the commencement of that great 
movement on behalf of the independence of the 
churches which has electrified the globe, and 
wrought out the most stupendous political and 
moral revolution of modern times. Its " line 
has gone out through all the earth, and its 
words to the^ end of the world," and it will 
sound through the corridors of all the coming 
ages. Edmund Burke said, " the Puritan spirit 
is the Protestantism of the Protestant religion ; " 
and Carlyle affirms, that " Puritanism is the only 
phasis of the Protestant religion which has re- 
sulted in a living faith. ;; This new order of 
things in the churches was substantially Con- 
gregationalism, though that system was not fully 
organized till it was done by Cotton and others 
in New England. 

Persecution followed the Non-Conformists close- 
ly and relentlessly. Many were fined, six of their 
number — " men of piety and learning ;; — were 
hanged, others were banished, and others still 
died in prison. They were vigilantly watched 
day and night, and were allowed neither to re- 
main in England nor to escape from the coun- 
try. Those were the days when such men as 
Bancroft, and Laud, and Whitgift were the 



40 ORTHODOX CONGREGATIONALISM 

u Primates of all England. 77 Never did prelates 
of the Church of Borne work with a heartier will 
to exterminate Protestants, than those dignitaries 
of the English Church to destroy the Puritans. 
Whit-gift was an able man ; but what were the 
others ? " The system of persecution/ 7 says 
Hallam, ''which was pursued by Bancroft and 
Laud, with the approbation of the king, far op- 
posed to the healing counsels of Burleigh and 
Bacon, was just such as low-born and little- 
minded men, raised to power by fortune's ca- 
price, are ever found to pursue/ 7 * 

But "the blood of the martyrs was the seed 
of the church/ 7 The right of private judgment 
in matters of religion — the very essence of 
Congregationalism — spread all the more for dun- 
geons, and banishment, and death. " I am 
afraid/ 7 said Sir Walter Raleigh, in the House 
of Commons, " there is near twenty thousand 
Brownists in England. 77 " I 7 11 harrie them out 
of the kingdom/ 7 said the Episcopal king ; " they 
are a sect unable to be suffered in any well- 
ordered commonwealth. 77 James had forgotten, 

* Constitutional History of England, London edition, 
1870, p. 280. 



AND THE SECTS. 41 

if he had known, the ominous exclamation of 
Donatus, fifteen hundred years before: "What 
has the emperor to do with the church!" In re- 
ply to the king, the significant language was 
used, " A people may be without a king ; a 
king cannot be without a people." Events hur- 
ried on apace. The cloud which overhung the 
Puritans grew thicker and blacker, and more 
portentous of the coming storm. 

"It is well knowne," says Governor Bradford, 
" unto ye godly and judicious ; however, since 
y e first breaking out of y e lighte of y e gospell, 
in our Honorable Nation of England (which was 
y e first of nations, whom y e Lord adorned there- 
with, after y e grosse darkness of popery which 
hath covered and overspread y e Christian world) 
what warrs, and opposissions ever since Satan 
hath raised, maintained, and continued against 
y e saintes, from time to time, in one sorte, or 
other, sometimes by bloody death and cruell tor- 
ments : other whiles imprisonments, banishments, 
and other hard usages. As being loth his king- 
dom should goe downe, the trueth prevaile ; and 
y e churches of God reverte to their anciente pu- 
ritie, and recover their primitive order, libertie, and 



42 ORTHODOX CONGREGATIONALISM 

benejie" * And Burke quotes from Sully a re- 
mark of great sagacity, and one which applies as 
well to religious as to political revolutions : "It 
is never from a desire to attack that the people 
rise, but from impatience under suffering" That 
was the primal cause which drove our fathers 
from England. And Buckle, in his " History 
of Civilization/' says, with truth equally pro- 
found, " England made the greatest progress in 
liberty under the worst kings, because then the 
people acted." And so they did. 

It was in such troublous times as these, that 
Orthodox Congregationalism — the polity and the 
faith of the Apostles and the primitive Christians, 
— a system which has given America her free in- 
stitutions in the Church and in the State, and a sys- 
tem which is spreading those institutions over all 
the civilized world, — reappeared after the lapse 
of twelve hundred years of darkness and despo- 
tism. It is quite unnecessary to rehearse, with 
greater minuteness, the story of the privations, 
the wrongs and the dangers to which our Pil- 
grim Fathers were subjected in their native land, 
" for the word of God and the testimony of Jesus 

* Bradford's Manuscript History, chap. i. ; Massachusetts 
Historical Collections, Vol. iii., Fourth Series. 



AND THE SECTS. 43 

Christ." It is enough for the present purpose 
to say, that they were formed into a church of 
Christ, by mutual desire and consent, at Scrooby, 
in Nottinghamshire, England, in 1606, and sol- 
emnly covenanted with the Lord and with each 
other, " to walk in all His ways made known, or 
to be made known unto them, according to their 
best endeavors, whatever it should cost them." 

Soon after, they prepared to leave the land of 
their fathers. Several years later, Milton ex- 
claimed, " What numbers of faithful and free- 
born Englishmen have been constrained to for- 
sake their dearest homes, their friends and kin- 
dred, whom nothing but the wide ocean and the 
savage deserts of America could hide and shelter 
from the fury of the bishops ! " * 

Persecuted past all endurance, the little Scroo- 
by church attempted to escape from their beloved 
country, when several of the members were ar- 
rested and imprisoned. On a second attempt, a 
part of the company were taken on board the 
ship, when the Dutch captain, fearing pursuit, 
''weighed anchor, and was away;" " but pitiful 
it was to see the heavy case of the poor women 
who were thus separated from their husbands : 

* Reformation in England, Book ii. 



44 ORTHODOX CONGREGATIONALISM 

what weeping and crying on every side ; some 
for their husbands who were carried away in the 
ship, and others n3t knowing what should be- 
come of them and their little ones ; others melted 
in tears, seeing their poor little ones hanging about 
them, crying for fear, and quaking with cold."* 

A part of them finally reached Amsterdam, and 
the next year Leyden. A third attempt to escape 
was more successful. But persecution followed 
them across the sea. Sir Dudley Carleton, the 
English ambassador at the Hague, attempted to 
arrest Elder Brewster, their beloved teacher, but 
failed, as Carleton says, because u the sellout em- 
ployed to apprehend him was a dull, drunken 
fellow, who took one man for another." And 
even after their arrival at Leyden, English Episco- 
pal hatred continued to harass them. Fearing 
the British government, the Dutch " would not 
allow them a church in which they might wor- 
ship God ; " but " their religious assemblies," as 
Mr. George Sumner informs us, " were probably 
held in some hired hall, or in the house of Robin- 
son, their pastor." f 

* Bradford's Manuscript Journal. Collections Massachu- 
setts Historical Society. 

t Sumner's " Memoirs of the Pilgrims at Leyden," Vol. 
ix. Collections Massachusetts Historical Society. 



AND THE SECTS. 45 

But these wandering exiles were "Pilgrims" in- 
deed, for they were not to find a permanent home 
even in Holland. " They went out, not knowing 
whither they went. They confessed that they 
were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. For 
they that say such things declare plainly that 
they seek a country. And, truly, if they had 
been mindful of that country from whence they 
came out, they might have had opportunity to 
have returned. But now they desire a better 
country, that is, an heavenly ; wherefore God is 
not ashamed to be called their God ; for He hath 
prepared for them a city." After the sad expe- 
rience of about twelve years, they determined to 
leave Leyden, — though they enjoyed, says Brad- 
ford, "much sweete and delightefull societie and 
spirituall comforte under y e able ministrie and pru- 
dente governmente of Mr. John Robinson and 
Mr. William Brewster, and many came unto them 
from divers partes of England, so as they 
grew a great congregation. But they heard a 
strange and uncouth language, and beheld y e dif- 
ferente maners and customes, and strange fash- 
ons, all so farre differing from y 1 of their plaine 
countne (wherin they were bred and had so longe 
lived) as it seemed they were come into a newe 



40 ORTHODOX CONGREGATIONALISM 

world. Many of them were poore, and the coun- 
trie was not so beneficiall for their living and es- 
tats, that they could hardly raise a competente 
living, but with hard and continuall labor. 
Sundry of them were taken away by death. M 
Surrounded by such uncongenial society, such 
manifold temptations, such licentiousness of youth, 
and such " neglect of observation of the Lord's Day 
as a Sabbath, y e sagest members began wisely 
to think of a timly remedy by remoovall to some 
other place ; yea, some chose y e prisons in England 
than this libertie in Holland. But of all sor- 
rowes most heavie to be borne, was that many 
of their children, by y e great licentiousness of y e 
countrie were drawn away by evill examples into 
extravagant and dangerous crimes, getting y° 
raines off their neks, and departing from their 
parents, to the danger of their soules, and to y e 
great greefe of their parents and dishonor of God. 
Lastly (and which was not least), a great hope 
and inward zeall they had of laying some founda- 
tion for y e propagating and advancing y e gospell 
of y e kingdome of Christ in those remote parts 
of the world ; yea, though they should be but 
even as stepping-stones unto others fory e perform- 
ing of so great a work. They knew that they 



AND THE SECTS. 4T 

were pilgrims, and looked not so much on things 
of earth, but lift up their eyes to the heavens , 
their dearest countrie, and quieted their spirits. 
The place they had thoughts on was some of 
those vast and unpeopled countries of America, 
which are fruitfull and fitt for habitation, being 
devoyed of all civill inhabitants, wher thcr are 
only salvage men, which range up and downe 
like y e wild beasts of y e same." * 

Oppressed with the cares incident to their re- 
moval to America, they still deemed it their 
duty to leave behind them a re-avowal of their 
Faith and Polity, and they therefore sent the fol- 
lowing brief statement to Sir John Worssenham, 
one of the principal members of the Virginia 
Company, under the auspices of which they were 
about to embark : — 

" Touching y e Ecclesiasticall ministrie, namely 
of pastores for teaching, elders for ruling, and 
deacons for distributing y e churches contribution, 
as allso for y e two Sacraments, Baptisme and y e 
Lord's Supper, we do wholy and in all points 
agree with y e French reformed churches, accord- 
ing to their publick confession of faith. 

"Signed, John Robinson, 

William Brewster." 

* Bradford's Manuscript Journal. Collections Massa- 
chusetts Historical Society. 



48 ORTHODOX CONGREGATIONALISM 

The emigrants left Leyden for England, July 

2, 1620, amid the prayers, tears and benedictions 

of Robinson and of the remaining members of the 

church, who were expecting soon to follow them. 

The story of their voyage from Plymouth in 

Old England to Plymouth in New England, with 

all their perils and hardships, has been rehearsed 

a thousand times, and will be a thousand times 

more. 

" Fathers have told it to their sons, 
And they again to theirs ; 
And generations yet unborn 
Shall tell it to their heirs. " 

Little children have dropped their playthings, 
and older ones Thackeray and Dickens, and have 
gathered round the mother's knees and the father's 
old arm chair to listen to it again. It is perti- 
nent here to refer to the incidents of their voyage 
only in the most general manner. Bradford speaks 
of " the fierce storms with which the ship was 
badly shaken and her upper works made very 
leaky ; and one of the mainbeams in the midships 
bowed and cracked;" and of their " serious con- 
sultation " in mid-ocean about putting back, when 
" the great iron screw which the passengers 
brought out from Holland " was so providentially 



AND THE SECTS. 49 

found " for the buckling of the mainbeam," and 
" raising it into his place." And Mr. Edward 
Everett tells us, as they at last approached the 
land, of the " coast fringed with ice ; dreary 
forests, interspersed with sandy tracts, filling the 
background : " of "no friendly lighthouses as yet 
hanging out their cressets on their headlands ; no 
brave pilot-boat hovering like a sea-bird on the 
tops of the waves to guide the shattered bark 
to its harbor ; and no charts and soundings making 
the secret pathways of the deep plain as a grav- 
elled road through a lawn. 77 

But on the tenth day of December, 1620, they 
reached Provincetown, on Cape Cod. That prom- 
ontory was discovered by Captain Bartholomew 
Gosnold, in 1602, and it was so named by him, 
as Cotton Mather informs us, a in remembrance of 
the codfish in great quantity taken by him there ; 
a name it will never lose, till shoals of codfish be 
seen swimming upon the tops of its highest 
hills ! " 

During their long and tempestuous voyage of 
sixty-five days, symptoms of insubordination be- 
gan to appear, and were more fully developed 
while they lay in Provincetown harbor. "They 
4 



50 ORTHODOX CONGREGATIONALISM 

had no charter from their king, and no right to 
the soil on which they landed." * 

Perceiving the necessity of some form of civil 
government for their own control, all the men on 
board the Mayflower, forty-one in number, adopt- 
ing the principle of "universal suffrage," — a 
principle which has hardly yet become fully accli- 
mated in some parts of our country, — voluntarily 
framed and signed that memorable, solemn cov- 
enant, which Mr. Winthrop affirms to be " the 
earliest original compact of self-government, of 
which we have any authentic records in the 
annals of our race." It runs as follows : — 

" The Compact. 

" In y e name of God, Amen. We whose names 
are underwritten, y e loyall subjects of oar dread 
soveraigne Lord, King James, by y e grace of God, 
of Great Britaine, Franc, & Ireland, king, defender 
of y e faith, &c. haveing undertaken for y e glorie 
of God, and advancemente of y e Christian faith, 
and honour of our king and countrie, a voyage to 
plant y e first colonie in y e Northerne parts of Vir- 
ginia, doe by these presents solemnly & mutually 
in the presence of God, and one of another, cov- 
enant & combine our selves together, into a civill 
body politick, for our better ordering & preserva- 
tion & furtherance of y e ends aforesaid ; and by 

* John Quincy Adams's Discourse on the New England 
Confederacy of 1G43. 



AND THE SECTS. 51 

vertue hearof to enacte, constitute, and frame 
such just & equall lawes, ordinances, acts, con- 
stitutions, & offices, from time to time, as shall be 
thought most meete & convenient for y e generall 
good of y e colonie, unto which we promise all 
due submission and obedience. 

" In witnes whereof we have hereunder sub- 
scribed our names at Cap Codd y e n. of November, 
in y e year of y e raigne of our soveraigne Lord, 
King James, of England, Franc, & Ireland y e 
eighteenth, and of Scotland y e fifty fourth. Anno 
Dom. 1620." 

Sir James Mackintosh has said, that " Consti- 
tutions are not made but grow." This first con- 
stitution of free civil government which this op- 
pressed world ever saw, "grew" out of the free 
religious system of the Pilgrims. It was the 
result of their high sense of personal responsi- 
bility, — of their strong love of social order, — and 
of their deep conviction that liberty will degen- 
erate into licentiousness, unless it is regulated by 
law. They learned it by their own cordial per- 
sonal subjection to the King of kings. 

Turn now again to that third exploring party 
which left the Mayflower, — not quite blown up by 
the rashness of Francis Billington, a mischievous 
boy, and still riding at anchor in Cape Cod harbor 
on the 16th of December, N. S., — to those "ten 



52 ORTHODOX CONGREGATIONALISM 

of our men," with "two of our seamen," and 
with six of the ship's company — eighteen in all 
— in an open shallop, who, after spending a large 
part of two days "in getting clear of a sandy 
point, which lay within less than a furlong of the 
ship," — " the weather being very cold and hard," 
two of their number "very sick," and one of 
them almost " swooning with the cold," and the 
gunner, for a day and a night seemingly " sick 
unto death," - — found " smoother water and better 
sailing " on the lTth, but " so cold that the water 
froze on their clothes and made them many times 
like coats of iron ; " who were startled at mid- 
night by " a great and hideous cry," and after a 
fearful but triumphant "first encounter," early the 
next morning, the 18th, with a band of Indians, 
who assailed them with savage yells and showers 
of arrows, and after a hardly less fearful encoun- 
ter with a furious storm, which " split their mast 
in three pieces" and swept them so far upon the 
breakers that the cry was suddenly heard from 
the helmsman, "About with her, or else we are 
all cast away I " — found themselves at last, when 
the darkness of night had almost overtaken them, 
" under the lee of a small island, and remained all 
that night in safety," " keeping their watch in 
the rain." 



AND THE SECTS. 53 

There they passed the 19th, exploring the 
island, and perhaps repairing their shattered mast. 
The record is brief but suggestive : " Here we 
made our rendezvous all that day, being Satur- 
day." But briefer still, and more suggestive of 
the character of these emigrants, is the entry on 
the following day : — 

"20th of December, on the Sabbath day wee 
rested." 

At this point in Bradford's Narrative, Mr. 
Winthrop, in his admirable Oration, exclaimed : — 

" I pause, — I pause for a moment, — at that 
most impressive record. Among all the marvel- 
lous concisenesses and tersenesses of a Thucyd- 
ides or a Tacitus, — condensing a whole chapter 
of philosophy, or the whole character of an indi- 
vidual or a people, into the compass of a motto, 
— I know of nothing terser or more condensed 
than this ; nor anything which develops and ex- 
pands, as we ponder it, into a fuller or finer or 
more characteristic picture of those whom it de- 
scribes. ' On the Sabbath day wee rested.' It 
was no mere secular or physical rest. The day 
before had sufficed for that. But alone, upon a 
desert island, in the depths of a stormy winter ; 
well nigh without food, wholly without shelter ; 



54 ORTHODOX CONGREGATIONALISM 

after a week of such experiences, such exposure 
and hardship and suffering, that the bare recital 
at this hour almost freezes our blood ; without an 
idea that the morrow should be other or better 
than the day before ; with every conceivable mo- 
tive, on their own account and on account of 
those whom they had left in the ship, to lose not 
an instant of time, but to hasten and hurry for- 
ward to the completion of the work of explora- 
tion which they had undertaken, — they still 
'remembered the Sabbath day to keep it holy.' 
' On the Sabbath day wee rested/ " 

Hear this, all ye to whom six days in the week 
are not enough in which to collect the pelf of 
earth, — " On the Sabbath day wee rested/'" 

Hear this, all ye who would know what is the 
corner-stone of our national prosperity, — " On 
the Sabbath day wee rested." 

Hear this, all ye who would learn the way to 
heaven, — "On the Sabbath day wee rested. " 

At last, on the 21st day of December, 1620, 
N. S., the Pilgrims landed on Plymouth Rock, — 
" the door-step, " as Longfellow says, " into a 
world unknown, 7 ' — and with the richest cargo 
of principles that ever crossed the Atlantic. 
Carver, Brewster, Winslow, Bradford, Standish 



AND THE SECTS. 55 

and their associates — viri illustrissimi — became 
the founders of our churches and of a nation of 
forty millions of free worshippers of God. 



" The Mayflower on New England's coast has furled her tattered sail, 
And through her chafed and moaning shrouds December's breezes 

wail j 
Yet on that icy deck, behold a meek but dauntless band, 
Who, for the right to worship God, have left their native land; 
And to this dreary wilderness this glorious boon they bring — 
A Church without a Bishop, and a State without a King ! 

Those daring men, those gentle wives, say, wherefore do they come ? 
Why rend they all the tender ties of kindred and of home ? 
'Tis Heaven assigns their noble work, man's spirit to unbind; 
They come not for themselves alone — they come for all mankind; 
And to the empire of the West this glorious boon they bring — 
A Church without a Bishop, and a State without a King ! 

Then, Prince and Prelate, hope no more to bend them to your sway — 
Devotion's fire inflames their breasts, while Freedom points their 

way ; 
And in their brave hearts' estimate, 'twere better not to be, 
Than quail beneath a despot, where the soul cannot be free; 
And therefore o'er a wintry wave, those exiles come to bring 
A Church without a Bishop, and a State without a King ! 

And still their spirit, in their sons, with freedom walks abroad; 
The Bible is our only creed, our only sovereign, God ! 
The hand is raised, the word is spoke, the joyful pledge is given- 
And boldly on our banner floats, in the free air of Heaven, 
The motto of bur sainted sires; and loud we'll make it ring — 
A Church without a Bishop, and a State without a King ! " 



It should be forever remembered, that the 
Scrooby Church, the Leyden Church, the May- 
flower Church, the Plymouth Church, the " Church 
without a Bishop/ 7 was substantially a Congrega- 
tional Church, though all the details of that pol- 



56 ORTHODOX CONGREGATIONALISM 

ity weie not yet fully wrought out and digested 
into a scientific form. That church discarded 
every relic and shred of hierarchy, whether it 
was Romish or English. The Pilgrims, — those 
eminent revivers of the polity of the apostolic 
age, — were profound students of church order. 
The times in which they lived required them to be 
deep thinkers on that subject. They were com- 
pelled to make very considerable progress in ec- 
clesiastical philosophy. Instructed men have not 
only better opinions, but they have a better right 
to their opinions than ignorant men. 

It is not supposed that the Fathers of New 
England fully anticipated, "whereunto" their own 
principles "would grow." They builded better 
than they knew. But they were eminent for their 
age ; and their attainments in the science of 
church order will appear all the more surprising, 
when we remember that the human mind had then 
scarcely begun to emerge from the darkness of 
the Middle Ages, and that there was almost uni- 
versal ignorance upon all the -sciences with which 
we are now so familiar. Astrology was more 
orthodox than belief in the Copernican astronomy. 
Descartes thought himself safer in Holland than 



in France. Harvey's theory of the circulation of 



AND THE SECTS. 5*7 

the blood was rejected by all the physicians in 
Europe above the age of forty. Thirty years 
after our Fathers landed at Plymouth, Pascal de- 
clared the earth to be the centre of the universe, 
though he knew Galileo was right ; and in 1683, 
long after Congregationalism was wrought into a 
complete system, the Copernican theory was held 
in Paris to be heretical, and Leibnitz pronounced 
the Newtonian theory to be immoral. And a 
hundred years later still, John Wesley believed 
in witches, and Dr. Samuel Johnson in ghosts. 
But the Congregational theory of church govern- 
ment, in many of its leading characteristics, had 
been both thought out and wrought out as early 
as 1606, by such men as Richard Clifton, John 
Robinson and William Brewster. That polity was 
carried to Leyden, and brought to Plymouth. 

It is one of the peculiar glories of Orthodox 
Congregationalism, that it cannot be traced back 
to any one individual as its founder. " Be not 
ye called Rabbi ; for one is your Master, even 
Christ ; and all ye are brethren." The Methodists 
glory in John Wesley, as the founder of their 
denomination ; the Baptists, in Roger Williams ; 
the Unitarians, in Thomas Belsham ; the Univer- 
salists, in John Murray ; the New Church, in Em- 



58 ORTHODOX CONGREGATIONALISM 

manuel Swedenborg ; and the Mormons, in Joe 
Smith. The Eev. Mr. Man ton, in his discourse 
before the British House of Commons, said, " The 
devil getteth a great advantage of us bynames" 
But Christ clearly intended to deprive him of that 
" advantage ?; in the case now before us, for He so 
ordered events that in organizing Congregation- 
alism into a system, He has not allowed us to call 
any man " Master, ;; or to ascribe to any mortal 
the honor that belongeth to Himself alone. We 
have no saints in our calendar, and no founder to 
canonize. He has thus graciously saved <us from 
the danger of breaking the First Commandment. 
Hence, when Congregationalism was elaborated 
into complete form in this country, it was not 
done by any one man, but by a succession of men, 
and among the best who have adorned the annals 
of Christianity. 

The Puritans who arrived at Salem in 1629, 
and those who came to Boston soon afterwards, 
had greater organizing talent than their brethren 
at Plymouth. Cotton Mather informs us that 
"the great Mr. Hildersham had advised our first 
planters to agree fully on their form of church 
government before coming into New England ; 
but they had agreed little than in this general 



AND THE SECTS. 59 

principle, that the reformation of the Church was 
to be endeavored according to the written word of 
God. Accordingly, ours now arrived at Salem, 
consulted with their brethren at Plymouth, what 
steps to take for the more exact acquainting them- 
selves with, and conforming themselves to, that 
written word ; and the Plymotheans, to their 
great satisfaction, laid before them what warrant 
they judged they had in the laws of our Lord 
Jesus Christ, for every particular of their Church 
order. 

11 Whereupon having the concurrence and coun- 
tenance of their deputy governor, the worshipfull 
John Endicott, Esq. ; and the approving presence 
of the messengers from the Church, of Plymouth, 
they set apart the sixth day of August after 
their arrival, for fasting and prayer, for the set- 
tling of a Church-state among them, and for their 
making a Confession of Faith, and entering into 
a holy Covenant whereby that Church-state was 
formed." * 

But other men, still more distinguished, had a 
most important agency in settling the principles 
of Orthodox Congregationalism. John Wilson, 
the first pastor of Boston, was one of them. On 

* Magnalia, Vol. i. pp. 65, 06. 



60 ORTHODOX CONGREGATIONALISM 

his temporary return to England, he was present 
in the family of a friend at their morning prayers. 
According to Cotton Mather, "Mr. Rogers asked 
him to say something upon the chapter that was 
read, which happened to be the first chapter of 
the first book of Chronicles ; and from a par- 
agraph of meer proper names, that seemed alto- 
gether barren of any important matter, he raised 
so many fruitful and useful notes, that a pious 
person then present, amazed thereat, could have 
no rest, without going over into America after 
him." "Methinks," said Thomas Shepard, "I 
hear an Apostle when I hear that man." 

Another was John Eliot. lie was suspended by 
Archbishop Laud, came here with Governor Win- 
throp, translated the whole Bible into the Indian 
language, and in his eighty-sixth year died, ex- 
claiming, " Welcome joy ! " 

Thomas Hooker was another. " He was a 
prodigy of learning, and an eloquent orator." He 
was a preacher of so much excellence, that it was 
said of him in England, " Our peoples' palats 
grow so out of tast, y* noe food contents them 
but of Mr. Hooker's dressing." He narrowly es- 
caped the persecution of Laud, came to this coun- 
try in 1633, was the first pastor of the Church in 



AND THE SECTS. 61 

Cambridge, Mass., and thence, with a part of his 
congregation, penetrated through the wilderness 
to Hartford, Conn., and became the first pastor of 
the church in that place. 

Thomas Shepard was another of those great 
luminaries. He was silenced by Laud in 1630, 
fled to New England in 1635, was the second pas- 
tor of the Church in Cambridge, Mass., and died 
there in 1649. Harvard College was located at 
Cambridge, partly for the reason that the students 
might be under his " orthodox and soul-flourishing 
ministry ; " every sermon he wrote is said to 
have " cost him tears ; " and the eulogium pro- 
nounced upon his memory was, " Thousands of 
soules have reason to bless God for him." 

John Davenport, of New Haven, was yet an- 
other. "He came over," says Neal, "with a 
very great retinue of acquaintances and follow- 
ers." He was a "princely preacher." His ec- 
clesiastical impress upon Connecticut remains 
unto this day. 

Richard Mather, of Dorchester, was still another. 
He made the first and principal draft of the Cam- 
bridge Platform. When told that Congregation- 
alism is "a mere rope of sand," he replied, "It 
hath so much force as there is force in the reason 



62 ORTHODOX CONGREGATIONALISM 

of it ; " which epigram, being interpreted, means, 
11 There is reason enough in it, and therefore there 
is reason enough for it, and therefore, again, there 
is force enough in it." 

But John Cotton did more than any other of 
these worthies to give "form and pressure " to 
our polity. He was a man of great learning, and 
" mighty in the Scriptures." It is said of him 
that " on the Lord's Day, in the afternoons, he 
went thrice over the whole Body of Divinity in a 
catechistical way, and sweetly applied all, five or 
six hours." His " Power of the Keyes," is to this 
day a standard authority on Congregationalism. 

Such were the auspices, under which Orthodox 
Congregationalism was elaborated into a system 
and commenced its career in this country ; and 
Owen, Howe, Goodwin, Ainsworth and others in 
England, followed the example set by these dis- 
tinguished men, in laying the foundations of the 
prosperous Congregational Churches of Great Brit- 
ain. The most scholarly investigations of the 
present day have eliminated from this system, as 
it was left by our eminent New England Fathers, 
only a few points of much importance ; such as 
the remnants of Presbyterianism on the one side, 
and strict Independency on the other ; its " teach- 



AND THE SECTS. 63 

ers, ?? as an order distinct from " pastors ; " its 
"ruling elders;" and its theory that all voters 
in civil affairs must be " members of the church." 
It now only remains to exclude Consociations, or 
the partial Presbyterianism which still lingers in 
some parts of Connecticut, and to preserve our 
system intact from the dangerous influence of a 
stated National Congregational Council. Such a 
Council, whether it be triennial, quinquennial or 
septennial, has no authorization in the New Tes- 
tament, and it would have met the decided oppo- 
sition of all the Fathers of New England ; and 
whatever safeguards may be thrown around it, at 
the outset, will be quite likely hereafter to be 
removed or ignored, and a vast centralized power 
introduced into Congregationalism, of which we so 
justly complain in the Presbyterian, the Metho- 
dist, and the Episcopal systems.* An occasional 
Council, like that in Boston in 1865, called on 
some special emergency, may not expose the 
Churches to any perils and may serve important 

* " If others can work through other forms solely for 
Christian ends, they will not be sectarian; but we think, 
and history confirms it, that those forms tend to sectarian- 
ism in proportion as they tend to centralization." — The 
Ideas and Polity of our Fathers. By Rev. Mark Hop- 
kins, D. D., in the Congregational Quarterly, January, 
1871. 



64 ORTHODOX CONGREGATIONALISM 

ends ; but a Council which shall meet at stated 
periods will, almost as a matter of course, gradu- 
ally gather to itself power for evil rather than 
for good. Such are now the facilities for inter- 
communication between the distant parts of the 
country, so accurate are the statistics of the 
Congregational Churches as they are made out by 
the State Conferences and Associations, so easily 
are they collected together for any desired pur- 
pose, and so pleasant is the interchange of dele- 
gates, that a permanent Council seems to be whol- 
ly unnecessary. Such a Council can be nothing 
more than a meeting of a few delegates. The 
mass of the Congregational ministry and churches 
can never meet together this side Heaven. The 
uttermost, then, of which such a Council can be 
composed, will be a mere handful of representa- 
tives, and it will offer a chance for certain indi- 
viduals to appear, at stated times, which may 
not particularly conduce to their humility. It 
may not therefore be uncharitable to conjecture, 
that at some future day a class of men may 
arise, one of which may have perhaps a taste for 
statistics, another for the secretaryship, and oth- 
ers for making the principal speeches ; and by 
the most natural course of events, and, certainly 



AND THE SECTS. 65 

we are bound in charity to presume without any 
management on their part, they will be elected to 
every meeting of the Council during their nat- 
ural lives. It is already assumed that the Coun- 
cil must early take our benevolent societies in 
hand, and the next step may be to take the 
churches in hand, also. The whole administra- 
tion of our ecclesiastical affairs may thus fall into 
the hands of a clique. Would that be good 
Congregationalism ? And, more than that, would 
it be good Christianity ? 

Having thus examined Orthodox Congrega- 
tionalism by the aid of the three lights of its 
etymology, its oneness with the polity of the New 
Testament, and its historical connection with the 
apostolic churches ; and traced that connection 
through the Vaudois, the Pilgrims and the Puri- 
tans, down to the present day ; and having thus 
shown, it is believed, its superiority over all 
other S3 7 stems, it only remains to inquire into its 
relations to civil and religious liberty, and especially 
into its progress in the world. 

It began to show its influence, in its very 
inception in modern times, by convulsing the 
Throne and the Episcopate of England. Hierar- 
chies and monarchies have never recovered from 
5 



66 ORTHODOX CONGREGATIONALISM 

that shock, and they never can. It should not be 
forgotten, though Clarendon, Robertson and oth- 
er British writers have strenuously endeavored to 
blink the fact out of sight, that the right of pri- 
vate judgment in the churches preceded and was 
the cause of that right in civil and political mat- 
ters. The Churches taught the State. The May- 
flower Church taught the colonists how to frame 
their memorable civil " Compact. ,; To the im- 
mortal honor of Orthodox Congregationalism it 
should be remembered, that that sublime mani- 
festo was one of its earliest fruits. The May- 
flower exiles formed themselves into a Church 
twelve years before they formed -themselves into 
a State. As Congregationalism became more 
systematized by the labors of Cotton and others, 
and as their writings on the subject became wide- 
ly read in England, the free principles it pro- 
claimed brought Charles to the block, set up the 
Commonwealth under Cromwell, and established 
Congregational churches in that country. It was 
the reaction of New England upon Old England, 
— the reaction of Congregationalism upon Epis- 
copacy, — which produced those important politi- 
cal and ecclesiastical results. New England 
churches were the seminaries of liberty for Eu- 



AND THE SECTS. 61 

rope. Nor is that all. The note of religious 
and civil freedom, first uttered in modern times 
by those churches, is still echoing round the 
earth, and will sound across the centuries to 
the end of time. With fear of change it per- 
plexes monarchs and hierarchies, nor will it cease 
till those powers are overthrown. 

The free Congregational church meeting, where 
the majority governed, suggested the idea of 
those little primary commonwealths, — the New 
England town meetings ; and so strong is our 
instinctive love of doing things ourselves, that 
it is said that "ten Yankees cannot be together 
an hour without choosing a committee.- 7 The 
Congregationalism of a small church in Virginia 
suggested to Thomas Jefferson his first concep- 
tion of the free republican government of the 
United States. Our representative system has 
already been followed by others on both con- 
tinents, and it is now shaking the thrones of po- 
litical and ecclesiastical despotism in both hemi- 
spheres, and introducing the reign of liberty in all 
lands. 



68 ORTHODOX CONGREGATIONALISM 



CHAPTER SECOND. 

CAUSES OF ITS PROGRESS BEING LESS RAPID 
THAN THAT OF SOME OF THE SECTS. 

At this point we are met by the somewhat 
formidable objection, Why, if Orthodox Congre- 
gationalism be the scriptural, and of course the 
best polity, have some other polities outstripped 
it in the race ? Why, inasmuch as it had all the 
ground here for the first half century, does it not 
hold it all to-day ? 

" Prosperity," says Froude, " does not always 
follow virtue." But Orthodox Congregationalism 
has succeeded in this country to a very great ex- 
tent, and, indeed, to a much greater extent than is 
admitted in some of the recent discussions. This 
would seem to be patent to every intelligent and 
candid observer. Still, however, it must be con- 
ceded, that some Sects, of recent origin, have 
quite surpassed it in their count of numbers. 

The following are the principal causes of this 
condition of our ecclesiastical affairs : — 



AND THE SECTS. 69 

First. The injudicious civil policy of the early 
Congregationalists. 

Second. The superior tact and supposed greater 
advantages of some competing Sects. 

Third. Certain idiosyncrasies or traits of mind, 
which more naturally affiliate with error than with 
truth. 

Fourth. The partial unsoundness of some Con- 
gregationalists ; and 

Fifth. Immigration. 

Let us consider these causes in their order. 

First. The wrong civil policy of the early Con- 
gregationalists. That policy was the result of 
their views of religious toleration. The Pilgrims 
of Plymouth were more tolerant than the Puritans 
of Massachusetts Bay, though the connection be- 
tween them was so intimate that it created the 
proverb, ° The Plymouth saddle is always on the 
Bay horse." The Puritans began to escape from 
England about nine years after the Pilgrims land- 
ed at Plymouth, and in that interim, they suffered 
so much more than their brethren of the May- 
flower had done in the land of their fathers, that 
their sensibilities were aroused to a higher pitch 
of intensity towards their persecutors. Though 
they were strongly attached to their mother 



70 ORTHODOX CONGREGATIONALISM 

church, and did not intend at the outset to 
leave her pale, they came here with the avowed 
determination to enjoy their rights of conscience. 
It is not therefore perhaps very strange, that 
they thought more of enjoying those rights them- 
selves, than of according them to others. Their 
endeavor was to have a united church, and a 
homogeneous Christian state. 

Their theory was correct. Every state, whether 
monarchical, aristocratic or republican, should be, 
in the fullest sense of the term, a Christian state ; 
that is, every man on earth should be a truly 
Christian man, and then every state would be, 
in the best sense, a Christian commonwealth. 
The Puritans were men of God. Their theory 
of government grew out of their deep religious 
convictions. They wished to have a religious 
State as well as a pure Church. Their theory of 
church government, too, was simply a logical 
outgrowth of their personal piety, just as other 
polities are the natural outgrowth of some world- 
ly motive, or of a perverted education. A close 
walk with God leads directly to a conviction of 
personal responsibility, and to a desire for free- 
dom and independence both in the church and in 
the state. The equality of all Christians before 



AND THE SEGTS. 71 

the law of God, tends to create the conviction 
of the equality of all men in their civil and eccle- 
siastical relations. 

We are now attempting in this country to 
maintain Republican institutions on another prin- 
ciple, and the attempt is yet an experiment. The 
trial is one of momentous importance. Though 
this Republic is now nearly a hundred years old, 
it is by no means certain that it will be perma- 
nent. As free institutions originate in religious 
principle, they cannot long survive its destruc- 
tion. A godless democracy is worse than a god- 
less monarchy; for when a monarch has no prin- 
ciple, the people may take the government into 
their own hands, and not only save the life, but 
greatly promote the prosperity of the nation. 
That experiment has been several times success- 
fully tried, and will have to be tried again. But 
when a republican nation becomes corrupt, who 
shall save it ? The next step is anarchy ; the 
last is despotism. 

Just here the United States are now nearing a 
great peril. The numerous murders, and bur- 
glaries, and adulteries, and divorces ; the growing 
insecurity of property and life ; the Kuklux out- 
rages : the alarming increase of fraud and pecula- 



72 ORTHODOX CONGREGATIONALISM 

tion in high places, partially excused under the 
soft term, " financial irregularities," but rapidly 
extending into many departments of society and 
into various branches of the civil service, and 
which has nearly exorcised all Christian princi- 
ple from the politics of the country ; and, as a 
result of the whole, a feverish unrest of the 
public mind ; — all, all augur anything bat per- 
manence for this republic. 

It is a question which is daily forcing itself 
upon the attention of the most thoughtful citi- 
zens, whether free institutions can long be main- 
tained, except upon the very principle which was 
adopted at the outset by the Fathers of New 
England. They were in advance of their times, 
and of these times, too. In principle they were 
right, and it is much to be regretted that their 
theory could not be carried out. They lived in 
an intolerant age, but they were much less intol- 
erant than their age. In their praiseworthy but 
impracticable attempt to found and perpetuate a 
truly Christian commonwealth, they endeavored 
to fence out of the country all kinds of secta- 
ries. With the purest intentions they attempted 
to establish a republic, which, though correct 
in principle, was, under the circumstances, as 



AND THE SECTS. ?3 

difficult to actualize as the Ideal Republic of 
Plato. " They undertook, by public regulation, 
what public regulation can never achieve ; but 
nothing in their course was apparent but the em- 
inently upright and Christian purpose." * Their 
treatment of the Quakers, Roger Williams, Anne 
Hutchinson and others, though somewhat exclu- 
sive, was a very tender kind of exclusiveness. It 
was carried, indeed, to the very verge of tolera- 
tion. But that treatment has been grossly mis- 
represented, and in that distorted form it was, 
and still is to some extent, accepted as authentic 
historic truth. This prejudice, so largely ground- 
less and unreasonable, has been most industriously 
propagated, and not always probably with the 
best of motives, and it is even now a slight ob- 
stacle to the success of Orthodox Congregation- 
alism. But time is a powerful solvent, and will ulti- 
mately remove it entirely from the public mind. 

It should however be stated, in justice to the 
fathers, that whatever was incorrect in their prac- 
tice of toleration, cannot be taken to be the 
logical result of their doctrinal belief or of their 
ecclesiastical polity. It was the fault of the 
times, and not of their principles. If there be 
* Palfrey's History of New England, Vol. i. p. 277. 



Y4 ORTHODOX CONGREGATIONALISM 

any polity and faith on earth which logically tend 
to greater largeness of heart and liberality of 
practice, history has failed to make it known. 
" It is certain," says a writer, whose competence 
to judge no man will dispute, " that the Congre- 
gational scheme leads to toleration, as the national- 
church scheme is adverse to it." * Again, " Pu- 
ritanism," says Barry, " contained the seminal 
principles of true religious toleration ." f Indeed, 
the extent to which correct principles of tolera- 
tion have spread over the earth, is the exact 
measure of the progress of Puritan Christianity. 
Another specimen of their incorrect civil policy 
was, that they required all voters to be members of 
the Church. This also was the offspring of mis- 
taken but pure intentions. At the very first 
meeting of the Massachusetts General Court, held 
May 18, 1631, it was 

" Voted, That to the end the body of the com- 
mons may be preserved of honest and good men 
for the time to come, no man shall be admitted to 
the freedom of this body-politic, but such as are 
members of some of the churches within the lim- 
its of the same." 

* Hallam's Constitutional History of England. London 
edition, 1865. Vol. ii. p. 197. 

f History of Massachusetts. By J. S. Barry. Yol. i. p. 45 



AND THE SECTS. 15 

" The motive of this limitation of the elective 
franchise/' says Bancroft, " lay in the dangers 
which were apprehended from England, and 
which seemed to require a devoted union, confirmed 
by the strongest ties, and consecrated by the ho- 
liest rites of religion." * This law was intended 
to protect the best interests of the State ; but it 
tended, and it seems strange to us that our Fa- 
thers did not foresee its tendency, to bring the 
churches into disrepute with that already some- 
what numerous and increasing class, who were 
thus debarred from equal civil privileges. Ortho- 
dox Congregationalism was not a little injured by 
that well-meant but injudicious enactment. 

Another unfortunate specimen of their legisla- 
tion was, that during our colonial history, and 
even down to the revision of the Constitution in 
1820, the Constitution and laws of Massachusetts 
discriminated, in the delicate matter of taxation, 
in favor of the Orthodox Congregational churches. 
For many years, all tax payers were required, 
nolens volens, to pay for the support of Congrega- 
tional ministers, if their churches were, as was 
perhaps universally the fact, the original church- 
es of the city or town ; and afterwards, when 

* History of the United States, Vol. i. p. 361. 



16 ORTHODOX CONGREGATIONALISM 

this extreme rigidity was relaxed, they were com- 
pelled to do so, unless they presented written 
proof that they preferred to pay for the support 
of some of the Sects. These partial and strin- 
gent requirements served, of course, to create 
other prejudices still against our form of church 
polity, and have somewhat impeded its progress. 
All these untoward influences, however, are now 
rapidly passing away,. 

Second. The superior tact avd supposed great- 
er advantages offered by some competing Sects, have 
added disproportionately to their numbers. Bacon 
says, " Storms in the natural world are more 
apt to occur about the equinoxia, when the days 
and nights are equal ; so when sects do grow to 
equality, there is apt to be more rivalry." And 
there is profound truth in the remark. When 
Sects are small, they are generally insignificant ; 
but "when they do grow to equality/' compe- 
tition is awakened, and efforts are made to outdo 
their seniors. 

To run the line between Orthodox Congregation- 
alism and the Sects, and to point out their respec- 
tive characteristics, is a matter of considerable 
delicacy ; and yet it is not perceived how it can 
be avoided, in an attempt to present the reasons 



AND THE SECTS. 77 

why some Sects are apparently more successful 
than the original churches of New England. It is 
always an ungracious task to find fault with our 
brethren of the same evangelical faith, and it is es- 
pecially so at the present time, when efforts to pro- 
mote union are hailed with delight by the Christian 
world, and by no individual more cordially than 
by the writer of these lines. But " faithful are 
the wounds of a friend ; " and as they claim to 
have a better polity than our own, it is believed 
that their liberal spirit will excuse us if we at- 
tempt to show them that they are quite wrong in 
the matter, though some of them may count up 
larger numbers. They themselves will agree, 
that truth should not be sacrificed to comity. 
While all reference to individuals is to be scrupu- 
lously avoided, a discussion of their principles 
and practices, if done in a Christian spirit, is 
always admissible and sometimes necessary. 

It will be quite logical in this attempt to pre- 
sent a rapid outline of the peculiarities of three 
or four of the prominent Sects, to sketch their 
more salient errors and defects, as those errors 
and defects are a fair offset against any excellen- 
ces which they claim, or are supposed to possess, 
over and above those of Orthodox Congregation- 



78 ORTHODOX CONGREGATIONALISM 

alism. Persons often join one denomination or 
another from mere whim or caprice, and not with 
an intelligent understanding of the merits and 
demerits of the whole case. Such an understand- 
ing will tend, as it should, to prevent such con- 
versions, and also to furnish matter for reflection 
and repentance to those who have incautiously 
made such changes. 

It is quite obvious without remark, that num- 
bers cannot be the criterion of the excellence of 
any polity. Were numbers the proper test, the 
Church of Eome would carry away the palm from 
all Protestant denominations, and the Eusso-Greek 
Church might do so too. The fact, therefore, 
that some competing Sects count numbers so 
largely in excess of our own, is, per se, no proof 
at all that their peculiarities are the best, or that 
they find any countenance in the New Testament. 

To begin, then, with the Methodists. John 
Wesley, their founder, had more skill as an eccle- 
siastical organizer, than Ilildebrand himself.* 

* " The Wesleyan organization claims to be considered as 
one of the most remarkable experiments in ecclesiastical 
science. In truth, it stands before us, alone and without a 
parallel, on the field of Church history. It is a master- 
piece of social organization." — Wesley and Methodism. 
By Isaac Taylor. London edition, 1851, p. 204. 



AND THE SECTS. 79 

The Methodist system implies a profound knowl- 
edge of men, and it is wonderfully adapted to 
some of the most powerful instincts of the human 
heart. Wesley was an Arminian, but he adroitly 
declined to make any creed for his followers. * 
This left the door open to admit an aggregation 
of materials into his " societies/ ' without much 
regard to their theological beliefs. Any man was 
orthodox enough for admission, if he was a Meth- 
odist. That system, too, is adapted to the op- 
posite poles of human nature. It consults the 
pride of the heart in the hierarchy of its clerical 
aristocracy, and the humility of Christ in " preach- 
ing the Gospel to the poor." It sits enthroned 
in the chair of bishoprics, but sends its pioneers, 
flaming with the zeal of Xavier, into the remotest 
recesses of the wilderness. It promptly takes by 
the hand every person who appears at its door, 
and treats him with such marked and Christian 
attentions that he feels at home there at once, and 
the neophyte is secured for life. The process is 
logical and sure. The stranger is first intro- 

* " Methodists do not impose, in order to the admission 
of persons into their societies, any opinions whatever* Is 
there any other society in Great Britain, or in the habitable 
world, so ready to admit all serious persons without dis- 
tinction t " — Wesley's Works, Vol. vii. p. 321. 



80 ORTHODOX CONGREGATIONALISM 

duced to the kind instructions of the " class-meet- 
ing ; " thence he is transferred to the warmer 
atmosphere of the " love-feast ; " and thence to 
the conspicuous position of the " exhorter's " 
stand. The attentions are never intermitted. 
The hand once placed upon him is kept upon him. 
"A woman may forget her sucking child/' but 
he is not forgotten. Thus, by a process which 
carefully consults the strongest principles in hu- 
man nature, whether selfish or sanctified, the 
result is certain. The stranger is transformed 
into a friend, the friend into a catechumen, the 
catechumen into a convert, and the convert into 
an apostle. Congregation alists must have some 
parallel contrivance, if they would compete with 
a system so effective. 

But this is not all. Every year Methodism 
demonstratively challenges public attention by 
its "watch meetings " and "camp meetings. 7 ' 
It also preaches an Arminian gospel, which does 
not, like Calvinism, alarm wicked men by pla- 
cing the question of their salvation, in the last 
analysis, in the hands of a sovereign God ; and 
it urges Christians to a life of "perfection/ 7 and 
sinners to "submit to Christ," with a zeal worthy 
of all imitation. It skilfully avails itself of the 



AND THE SECTS. 81 

fascinating influence of music, and by the rejec- 
tion of quartets, by the general practice of con- 
gregational singing, and the adoption of the 
sweetest, the most popular, and the most soul- 
stirring airs, it brings the multitude to the house 
of God, gives them something to do, and carries 
them up consciously near the Throne, by the 
grand melody of Praise. " Satan hates music, " 
said Luther : "he knows that it drives the evil 
spirit out of us ; " and Methodists know it, too.* 
A system thus dexterously adapted to the tastes 
of men, both holy and unholy, cannot but be 
popular with the multitude, and a large number 
of adherents might be reckoned upon in ad- 
vance. 

Besides, the facility with which Methodism 
makes and counts converts, has no parallel in 
the Orthodox Congregational Churches. A Pre- 
siding Elder, a few years since, summed up the 
results of a " camp meeting " in the following 
business-like style : "Fifty-two persons were con- 
verted, thirty-one backsliders were reclaimed, 

* " The Wesleyan singing was a source of great power to 
early Methodism, and hundreds of hearers who eared not 
for the preaching, were charmed to the Methodist assem- 
blies by their music." — Stevens's History of Methodism, 
Vol. i. p. 277. 

6 



82 ORTHODOX CONGREGATIONALISM 

nineteen attained to perfection, and if it hadn't 
rained yesterday we should have doubled the 
number." Other cases, scarcely less extrava- 
gant, have been authentically reported from dif- 
ferent parts of the country. Churches made up 
of such materials must contain a large amount 
of " wood, hay, and stubble," which cannot 
stand the test, when "the flie shall try every 
man's work of what sort it is." The English 
language may have epithets enough to set 
forth the folly and danger of such enumera- 
tions, but they do not occur to us at this pres- 
ent writing. Whether that system, then, dis- 
criminates sufficiently between mere animal ex- 
citement and the emotions of true penitence and 
holy joy ; whether it properly guards against 
the momentous danger of self-deception ; or 
makes the most intelligent and stable Chris- 
tians ; or the most enlightened and refined soci- 
ety ; are questions which should be profoundly 
pondered, before it can be safely accepted as 
the best form of church order and practice. 
What an anomaly it would be, and how strangely 
inconsistent it would appear to all Christendom, 
if a Methodist clergyman of eminence should 
publish a book, which should obtain a world-wide 



AND THE SECTS. 83 

notoriety, upon " True religion delineated, and dis- 
tinguished from all counterfeits," after the manner 
of Dr. Joseph Bellamy ! Would such penetra- 
ting truths, and such close and heart-searching 
discriminations be at all acceptable to the great 
body of that denomination ? That Methodism 
possesses many excellences, is most gratefully 
acknowledged, and that it has very serious draw- 
backs, is as deeply lamented. The quality, then, 
of the character which that system produces, 
much more than the quantity, must be considered 
in forming an estimate of its value, for so far as 
the quality is bad, the quantity is of little account. 
In this connection truth requires the remark, 
that Congregational principles are constantly and 
largely modifying the Methodist system. Their 
recent admission, after a hard-fought battle, of 
"lay representation, " — their extension of the 
term of ministerial service in the same church 
from two to three years, — the multiplication of 
their theological seminaries, and the more schol- 
arly education of their clergy, — and the gradual 
subsidence of their " bishops " into mere chair- 
men without Episcopal authority, are the effects 
of Congregationalism. No system can breathe 
the free air of old New England principles, and 



84 ORTHODOX CONGREGATIONALISM 

not become more liberal and enlightened. The 
preaching, too, of our Methodist brethren is not 
only becoming much more intelligent, but, as a 
necessary consequence, it is also becoming more 
evangelical ; and unless Congregational clergy- 
men look well to their laurels, they may soon be 
outdone in their Calvinism. In the more culti- 
vated societies, at least, Methodists do not 
" groan 77 so loudly, nor ejaculate " Amen 77 so 
lustily, nor approach the throne of mercy so 
irreverently, nor reach " perfection/ 7 nor " fall 
from grace " half so frequently as they did fifty 
years ago ; and when another half century has 
passed away, the difference between Congrega- 
tionalists and Methodists will probably be quite 
nominal. They already respond to calls for 
Christian union, apparently with a heartier zest 
than some other evangelical communions, and if 
they become thoroughly Calvinistic or Edwardean, 
we shall be glad to give them any day " the 
right hand of fellowship," and admit them into 
the " Congregational Body, 77 if the lesser can 
contain the greater. Tempora mutantur, et nos 
mutamur in Mis. 

But how about the Baptists ? They differ 



AND THE SECTS. 85 

widely among themselves, and are divided and 
subdivided into numerous classes, nearly all of 
them, however, adhering to the practice of close 
communion. The largest division is into Bap- 
tists and Free Will Baptists. The Free Will 
Baptists practise open communion, and they are 
therefore regarded by the other classes as a stand- 
ing protest against their exclusiveness, and are 
consequently quite uncomfortable denominational 
companions. They are Arminian in their theologi- 
cal views, but the Baptists are Calvinistic. 

The various theories of the Baptists about 
"baptism" and "communion" prove, that impor- 
tant changes must soon take place in that body. 
They generally hold, that the sacrament of Bap- 
tism must invariably precede the sacrament of 
the Supper. Some of them loudly declare for 
open communion, on the ground that there is no 
" express command " that baptism must precede 
communion, and that their churches have no right 
to prescribe terms of fellowship which the New 
Testament has not prescribed. Another class 
hold that baptism is an act of Christian fellow- 
ship but not of church fellowship, and therefore 
they will commune with a miscellaneous body of 
Christians which are providentially thrown to* 



86 ORTHODOX CONGREGATIONALISM 

gether, though not with the churches of which 
they are members. Various other distinctions 
have been set up which are not necessary to be 
mentioned ; but all these schemes and plans con- 
clusively prove, that the practice of restricted 
communion, which has so long been defended 
with all possible ingenuity and skill, stands on 
slippery places and is tottering to its fall. 

The Baptists, which constitute much the lar- 
gest part of that highly respectable conglomera- 
tion of sects, differ from all the rest of the Chris- 
tian world upon what seems to everybody, except 
themselves, to be a very unimportant point ; name- 
ly, the quantity of water necessary to baptism, or 
its application to the subject. They hold that 
an entire immersion of the person is necessary, 
though they do not profess to hold, that the 
application of the subject to the water washes 
away sin.* The more strenuous Baptists could 
not be more strenuous, if they believed that it 
actually cleanses men from all moral pollution. 
The more liberal class, which is constantly in- 
creasing in spite of all efforts to prevent it, will 

* Baptism with water is the application of water to the 
subject ; it is therefore an open question, whether the appli- 
cation of the subject to the water is any baptism at all. 



AND THE SECTS. 81 

probably fall into the Orthodox Congregational 
ranks at an early day. The people, — always 
more ready for reform than their leaders, — are 
more anxious for unrestricted communion than 
the clergy, though some of the clergy are al- 
ready regarded with suspicion for their liber- 
ality. 

The Baptist denomination in New England origi- 
nated with Roger Williams ; and as the marked 
characteristics of that distinguished man are 
still visible among us, it seems necessary to at- 
tempt a brief sketch of his character. He was, 
however, one of those exceptional specimens of 
humanity, of which it is difficult to present 
an exact portrait. Photographers tell us that 
there are some faces that do not "take well." 
Williams was a man of apparently earnest piety, 
of captivating address, and of persuasive elo- 
quence, but with all his numerous excellences, 
he had the faculty, in a remarkable degree, of 
making himself uncomfortable to others. Ma- 
caulay says he was " worthy of more unmitigated 
contempt than any character in English his- 
tory." * John Quincy Adams affirms that he 
was " the very impersonation of a conscientiously 

* Critical and Historical Essays, p. 159. 



88 ORTHODOX CONGREGATIONALISM 

contentious spirit." Bancroft says he was ''the 
first person in modern Christendom to assert 
in its plenitude the doctrine of the liberty of 
conscience ; " the Baptists hold that he was the 
very "apostle of soul-freedom;" the Narragan- 
sett Club, as it becomes all good Rhode Islanders, 
present the sunny side of his character ; and at 
last Mr. Winthrop enters the arena and at- 
tempts to compose matters, by admitting some 
of his foibles and fully indorsing his love, of re- 
ligious freedom ; in short, he makes him out to 
be a very excellent sort of an Ishmaelite, and 
then throws the sop to Rhode Island, for having 
him for her founder, that we "owe to her more 
than one of our most valued citizens." * 

Williams came to this country a Separatist ; 
soon got into trouble with the Puritan magis- 
trates and ministers of Massachusetts Bay ; then 
went to Salem and made trouble there ; then fled 
to Plymouth and got into trouble with the Pil- 
grims ; thence he returned to Salem where he de- 
nounced the magistrates, and declared all the 
churches in New England to be " unregener- 
ate ; ?? quarrelled with his wife, till she for a 

* Oration at Plymouth. By Hon. Robert C. Winthrop, 
Dec. 21, 1870. 



AND THE SECTS. 89 

time deserted him ; and finally he got out of 
trouble in Massachusetts by being sent out of 
the Colony by the civil authorities. Unable to 
agree with either Puritans or Pilgrims, he was 
the natural-born founder of a new denomination,* 
and his impress upon the gallant little State of 
Rhode Island remains unto this day. Being vir- 
tually excommunicated himself, he founded a sect 
in this country which excludes all others from the 
table of Christ. 

Embracing the doctrine that immersion is the 
only valid baptism, what was to be done ? There 
was no clergyman in the country who had been 
immersed, and therefore there was none who 
could immerse Mr. Williams. But " necessity 
knows no law/' and it is also u the mother of 
invention ; ,? so Mr. Ezekiel Holiiman, " a poor 
man " and a layman, immersed Mr. Roger Wil- 
liams, and Mr. Roger Williams, in turn, immersed 
Mr. Ezekiel Holiiman, and — the thing was done. 

But other troubles were in reserve for Mr. 
Williams. He soon began to question the va- 

* Roger Williams organized the first Baptist Church in 
this country, at Providence, E. I., in 1639. This was the 
second church of that order in the British dominions. The 
first was formed in London, in 1G33. 



90 ORTHODOX CONGREGATIONALISM 

lidity of his own baptism by immersion, " not 
being able/ 7 as John Winthrop says, "to derive 
the authority for it from the apostles, otherwise 
than by the ministers of England, whom he judged 
to be ill authority, so as he conceived God would 
raise up some apostolic power ; therefore he bent 
himself that way." * " In a few months," as 
Kichard Scott informs us, " he broke from the 
society he had organized, and declared that their 
baptism could not be right, because it was not 
administered by an apostle." f It is an un- 
pleasant but inevitable corollary from these 
premises, that all the Baptists, in regular de- 
scent from Mr. Eoger Williams, are themselves 
to-day unbaptized, as they have been immersed, 
according to his own theory, by unbaptized 
hands. 

In these days of growing catholicity, the Bap- 
tist sect presents, perhaps, the most remarkable 
phenomenon in the ecclesiastical world. Thor- 
oughly orthodox in all the articles of its creed, 
save those of communion and the subjects and 
mode of baptism ; and in New England soundly 

* Winthrop's Journal, i. p. 306. 

t Fox's " New England Firebrand Quenched," Part ii, 
p. 247. 



AND THE SECTS. 91 

Congregational, since it abandoned Independency, 
— though it retains much of that system at the 
West and South, — it still resists the spirit of the 
age, and turns a deaf ear to the trumpet calls for 
Christian union ; and while loudly professing de- 
sires for union, closes its doors of church-fellow- 
ship, for the most uutenable reason, against every 
other denomination in Christendom. The Baptists 
ciaimto be honest and intelligent in their interpreta- 
tion of the Scriptures. Their honesty in the matter 
must be presumed ; their intelligence, with all 
the Christian world against them, may well be 
doubted. They refuse to commune with other 
Christians because they differ about the mere form 
of a rite, when they themselves do not hold that 
the rite itself is essential to salvation. If the 
rite itself be not essential to salvation, the form 
of that rite cannot be essential. They therefore 
erect a mere form, which they themselves admit is 
not essential to salvation, into a term of commun- 
ion, — a term of communion too, which is not 
prescribed by the Scriptures ; and a term, again, 
upon which Christ did not insist, for He did not 
baptize His own personal disciples, as He surely 
would have done had it been necessary to their 
salvation, or to their communing with Him at His 



92 ORTHODOX CONGREGATIONALISM 

table. The Baptists admit that the members of 
other evangelical denominations are Christians, 
and yet refuse to commune with them on earth, 
though they expect, in a few days, to commune 
with them forever in heaven. 

Close communion is an anachronism. It better 
befits the unenlightened ages which have happily 
passed away, than the intelligence of these later 
times. The light of the nineteenth century is too 
bright for it, and under this intense brilliance, it 
is obliged partially to cover its eyes, to acknowl- 
edge that it is out of harmony with the spirit of 
the age, and to frame awkward and conflicting 
apologies for its existence. Many persons of 
acutest minds, of the highest culture, and of the 
broadest charity, not accepting the theory of the 
Baptists, and seeing that large and highly re- 
spectable sect, for a reason so trivial, exclude all 
others from the table of our common Saviour, 
have exhausted their skill to account for such a 
singular inconsistency, — such an extraordinary 
solecism. That a prosperous denomination can be 
built up on the mere form of a rite, — on a single 
plank, and that so narrow and unsubstantial, — 
is one of the curiosities of moral ecclesiology. 
It shows that a denomination can be made out of 



AND THE SECTS. 93 

very small materials, — out of a little water, as 
well as out of the doctrine of the Trinity. Mak- 
ing sects certainly cannot be reckoned among the 
"lost arts." 

Some resolve this phenomenon into the influ- 
ence of early education, and others into prejudice; 
some into a natural love of the exclusive, and 
others into motives less commendable; and an- 
other class, of a scientific turn, ascribe it to an 
occult constitutional predisposition, arising from 
some craniological peculiarity which has escaped 
the attention of the anatomists, or some psycho- 
logical obliquity which has eluded the search of the 
philosophers. Without passing any judgment on 
a point of such delicacy, the broad views of duty 
which are now taking possession of the Christian 
world, loudly demand that this exclusiveness be 
abandoned and this bar to fellowship removed, as 
alike inconsistent with Christian comity and the 
yearnings of every good man's heart. Not a few 
individuals in the Baptist ministry and churches 
are themselves deeply dissatisfied with this ex- 
clusive policy, and it is hoped that they will soon 
have moral courage enough to overthrow it, as 
Eobert Hall did in England. 

Congregationalists have already fulfilled a part 



94 ORTHODOX CONGREGATIONALISM 

of their mission in the world, by convincing many 
of their Baptist brethren that Independency is not 
the best polity ; and it is hoped, that by their 
practice of free communion with all who "love 
our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity/' they will 
soon convince them that they ought to follow an 
example at once so catholic and fraternal. Since 
in the cities and larger towns they havp aban- 
doned the river, the ocean, and the pond for the 
bathing-tub, — which is a wide departure from 
what they hold to have been the primitive mode 
of baptism, — it would seem that the difference be- 
tween us is narrowed down to very insignificant 
dimensions. The letter u is all the difference be- 
tween "baptismal font " and "baptismal fount/ 7 
and certainly so small an iota ought not to sepa- 
rate Christians "of like precious faith 77 at the 
table of their common Lord. 

It is a significant fact, that in the published 
statistics of this sect, they reckon their prosperity 
or want of prosperity very much by the number 
of " baptisms. 77 Comparisons of their progress in 
one section of the country with another, are made 
by counting the number of " baptisms/' Com- 
parisons of one year with another, are made by 
counting the number of " baptisms/ 7 Now, this 



AND THE SECTS. 95 

constant measuring of their rate of progress and 
of retrogression by the number of " baptisms/' 
has no authorization in the New Testament. It 
is not a test which the Scriptures use, or which 
the Orthodox Congregationalists use. It is the 
parlance of an intense sectarianism, — not of a 
noble catholicity. Congregationalists count by 
the additions to the churches. They apply no 
sinister, no denominational test. Their method 
of counting is the method of the apostles, — " And 
the Lord added to the church daily such as should be 
saved," — " And so were the churches established 
in the faith, and increased in number daily." 
Much of the apparent relative prosperity of some 
of the Sects would disappear, if they should apply 
the severe tests of the New Testament and of the 
Congregational churches to their supposed con- 
verts, and count only such persons as have been 
"added unto the Lord." 

The only conceivable attractions offered by the 
Baptists, over and above those of the Congrega- 
tionalists, must lie in their mode of baptism and 
in their exclusive communion. To many persons 
of delicacy and refinement, immersion presents no 
attractions whatever, but is decidedly repulsive 
To overcome this repulsiveness, the appeal is 



96 ORTHODOX CONGREGATIONALISM 

made to "follow Christ into the water," when 
there is the most convincing proof from ancient 
medals and engravings, representing the customs 
of those early times, that John baptized Him by 
pouring or affusion as He stood in the shoal 
water of Jordan, and when it is also historically 
certain that his baptism was not Christian baptism, 
as that was not instituted till three years after- 
wards. The appeal to " follow Christ into the 
water " is therefore sinister and delusive, as it 
cannot but be known to the immerser, that a 
large majority of the candidates have but little 
more knowledge of the principles of biblical in- 
terpretation, than they have of the Calculus, or 
of the Sanscrit, or of the star 61 Cygni. Such an 
appeal is made against the soundest canons of 
exegesis. It is made against the historical facts 
in the case. True self-denial is indeed an im- 
portant test of Christian character, but a self- 
denial submitted to under mistaken views is a 
proof of ignorance, not a test of principle. Con- 
gregationalists will immerse to satisfy mistaken 
consciences, and Baptists have no better right to 
baptize, because their right can be traced back 
only to Roger Williams and Ezekiel Holliman. 
That close communion presents attractions to a 



AND THE SECTS. 97 

class of people of a peculiar construction or edu- 
cation, is probably true ; but such attractions are 
a thousand fold less, in the view of right-minded 
men, than those which are offered by the more lib- 
eral practice of the Orthodox Congregationalists. 
Another important aspect of the subject should 
be profoundly considered. The human mind in 
all ages has been prone to substitute something 
objective for the subjective, — something external 
for the vital, in religion. The whole hierarchical 
system of Rome, and England, and America is 
founded on that principle. Men think that if they 
<;an perform some external religious act, which 
has some semblance to duty, it will commend 
them to the favor of God. Hence all sorts of 
human inventions have been contrived to propi- 
tiate the Divine favor, which are much more to 
the taste of the natural heart, than to repent of 
sin, exercise faith in Christ, and walk closely with 
God. Immersion exactly meets this kind of taste. 
The subject of it has done something. He has 
done something which can be seen ; but some- 
thing which any person can do without real con- 
version. It is by no means intended that all who 
are immersed submit to it "to be seen of men, 77 
or that they suppose that they earn something in 
7 ' 



98 ORTHODOX CONGREGATIONALISM 

the sight of God by that act of self-denial. Such, 
however, is the danger ; and such is the extreme 
deceitfulness of the heart, that many may have no 
better motive, though they are not aware of 
it. But the simple mode of baptism practised 
by the Congregationalists sounds no trumpet, 
earns nothing by performing some great outward 
act, makes no proclamation of self-denial, but it 
is strictly in good taste, and promotes quiet com- 
munion with God, on the part of parents who 
thus dedicate themselves and their children to 
His service, and on the part of adults who thus 
avouch their personal faith in Christ. Immersion, 
that relic of a darker age, though doomed, is re- 
luctant to quit, as " winter " sometimes "lingers 
in the lap of spring/ 7 

With regard to the Episcopalians, the prospect 
of their early conversion to liberal views is less 
encouraging. In this country they are clearly 
a sect, and should be so designated. The Church 
of England is a Hierarchy, as decidedly so as 
that of Rome. It professes to be a Protestant 
Church, but its protestations against Rome are 
not very pronounced, while affiliations with Rome 
are becoming more and more common. Under 



AND THE SECTS. 99 

Henry the Eighth, it professedly broke off from 
the Papacy, because the Pope would not divorce 
him from one wife and allow him to marry another. 
That was the reason why the Church of England 
was created ; and considering the infamous charac- 
ter of the man, it would seem to have small cause 
to be proud of its origin. Henry had six wives, 
and he assumed the title of the " Defender of the 
Faith/' conferred upon him by Leo X. ; but the 
principal " Faith " he ever " defended " was, that 
he ought to be married and divorced as often as 
he pleased. That Church, too, is made up of in- 
congruous materials. George Canning, the bril- 
liant English Premier, and of course an Episcopa- 
lian, said, "The Church of England has an Ortho- 
dox creed, a Romish ritual, and an Arminian 
clergy/' and a truer truth, despite the pleonasm, 
was never uttered. 

It is also supported in luxury by money which 
the government forcibly takes out of the pockets 
of the people, whether they are Episcopalians or 
not. " The lords spiritual " — bishops and arch- 
bishops — are " clothed in purple and fine linen, 
and fare sumptuously every day ; " and roll 
through the country in their splendid equipages, 
blazing with gold, with liveried postilions, and 



100 ORTHODOX CONGREGATIONALISM 

lackeys, and outriders, dashing over hill and dale, 
through city and hamlet, to the astonishment of 
their parishioners who furnish the money, and 
doubtless, — as they are " the successors of the 
apostles," — in the " apostolic " style in which 
Peter travelled when he went " a fishing," and 
Paul to the dungeon at Philippi. That such a 
church may be speedily " disestablished/ 7 is the 
ceaseless prayer of millions whom it oppresses. 

Herbert Spencer affirms, and certainly he ought 
to know, that that church "is essentially po- 
pish,* — that "when the State undertakes to 
propagate religion, it must determine what re- 
ligion is ; and since there can be no appeal from 
its decision, the church it establishes must be in- 
fallible, — which is popery." He says the State 
must decide " whether we should be baptized 
during infancy or at mature age ; whether the 
truth is with Trinitarians or Unitarians ; whether 
men are to be saved by faith or works ; whether 
pagans go to hell or not ; whether ministers should 
preach in black or white ; whether confirmation 
is scriptural ; whether saints 7 days should be 
kept ; whether baptism does or does not regen- 
erate ; in short, it must settle all those contro- 

* Spencer's Social Statics, p. 335, et seq. 



AND THE SECTS. 101 

versies which have split mankind into innumera- 
ble sects, or convict itself of the most absurd 
inconsistency. There is no alternative. There 
is no half way. Being charged to put men in 
the way to heaven, it cannot, without sin, permit 
some to be led the other way. If it does not 
claim infallibility, it cannot, in reason, set up a 
national religion ; and if, by setting up a national 
religion it does claim infallibility, it ought to 
coerce all men into the belief of that religion. 
Thus every State-church is essentially popish. " 

Again he says that the clergy, who hold that 
a State-church is necessary to the support of 
religion, " condemn their own case, pass sentence 
upon their creed as worthless, and bring them- 
selves in guilty of hypocrisy. What ! will they 
allow this faith, which they value so highly, to 
die a natural death if they are not paid for prop- 
agating it ? Must all these people, about whose 
salvation they profess such anxiety, be left to go 
to perdition, if livings, and canonries, and bish- 
oprics are abolished ? And then their flocks, 
— do these care so little for the faith they have 
been taught, that its maintenance cannot be intrusted 
to them ? Have ten thousand sermons a week 
done so little, that the hearers will not contribute 



102 ORTHODOX CONGREGATIONALISM 

a sum sufficient for the sustentation of the min- 
istry ? Why, if this be true, what is the system 
good for ? These advocates do but open their 
briefs, and then straightway argue themselves out 
of court. They labor to prove, either how pow- 
erless is the faith they teach, or how miserably 
they teach it ! " 

We have introduced these long extracts from 
Spencer, partly to show what an intelligent Eng- 
lishman thinks of the Established Church, and 
partly to present the relation of the Episcopal 
sect in this country to the matter of infallibility. 
The American daughter, like all good daughters, 
is fond of imitating the virtues of her mother ; 
and it is said that she sometimes hankers after 
"the onions and garlics of Egypt," and would 
not object, only so far as a becoming modesty 
half interposes on like occasions and says No 
when it means Yes, to a matrimonial connection 
with the State. But the prospect, that a " State- 
church " will be set up in these United States of 
America, is not very encouraging ; and if one 
should be, the comparatively small number of 
Episcopalians among us could hardly expect to 
be the favored party. But however that may be, 
the absurd claim that Episcopacy is the only 



AND THE SECTS. 103 

church, and the Episcopate the only clergy who are 
authorized to perform certain ministerial functions, 
— a claim which they hold as uncompromisingly 
here, as their mother does in England, —involves, 
here as well as there, the monstrous assumption, 
that American Episcopacy is infallible too. Ac- 
cording to their theory, there must be an earthly 
umpire somewhere ; and that umpire is the Epis- 
copal Church, because there is none other. 

With regard to this matter of infallibility, it 
makes no difference whether the assumption of 
being the only church is made by a u State- 
church," or by a church not connected with the 
State. In both cases it excludes all other church- 
es from the category, and arrogates to itself all 
the powers and functions of the Church of Christ 
on earth. The gist of the matter lies in its being 
the only church. The only church must, of course, 
be an infallible church. There is nothing earthly 
above it. There is no higher tribunal to which 
an appeal can be made. Its decisions must, there- 
fore, be unalterable and final. Besides, it does 
not hold itself answerable for the salvation of 
anybody without its pale, but indorses for every- 
body within it. If any man is a member of the 
true church he must be saved, for he has been 



104 ORTHODOX CONGREGATIONALISM 

" confirmed " by a bishop, who, according to the 
theory, is an infallible judge of his qualifications. 
Consistently with the Episcopal theory, they must 
claim all this, and nothing less. Inexorable logic, 
then, brings us to the conclusion, that we have 
veritable popery on this Puritan soil, — infalli- 
bility within a Protestant church, virtually but 
not openly claimed, in Boston, New York, Chica- 
go and San Francisco, as well as in Eome, and on 
precisely the same ground. For all that the writer 
can perceive, Mr. Spencer's argument, in its ap- 
plication to the Church of England, is unanswer- 
able, and equally so in its application to the 
Episcopal Church in this country. 

But still it is true, that American Episcopacy 
is largely modified by the free institutions which 
Congregationalists established here, though it re- 
tains the exclusive spirit, the pompous manners, 
and much of the antiquated ritualism of the mother 
church. It also retains, borrowed from Eome 
but nowhere enjoined in the Bible, the Lents and 
Easters, the Quinquagesima Sundays, and Shrove 
Tuesdays, and Ash Wednesdays, and Good Fri- 
days, and other superstitions of the Middle Ages, 
to improve the piety of these enlightened times, 
just as icebergs, floated down from the polar 



AND THE SECTS. 105 

regions, fructify the warm savannas of the 
South. Soon it will probably be split in twain by 
the High and Low Church controversy, and then 
the High Church party will affiliate w T ith Popery, 
and the Low Church will slowly gravitate towards 
the freedom of apostolic Congregationalism. 

An excessive use of forms, copied from the 
Church of Rome, is practically the bane of Epis- 
copacy. Twelve hundred years of experience is 
a term certainly long enough to prove it to be a 
psychological law, that excessive forms in the man- 
ner will inevitably create formalism in the spirit. 
As a natural sequence, worldiness predominates, 
and to get worldly men into heaven, the terms 
of admission must be more accommodating than 
they are held to be in the Orthodox churches. 

Intimately connected with this excessive ritual- 
ism is a pointless manner of presenting the truth, 
in the pulpits of High Church party. Their style 
of pulpit speech is indefinite, indiscriminating, 
vague. It is distinguished for " glittering gen- 
eralities. " Nobody in particular is addressed, and 
the pungent, searching truths of the Gospel are 
held quite in abeyance. The result is, that few 
are converted, and piety lives a flickering life. 
Bishop Bloomfield tells the appropriate story, that 



106 ORTHODOX CONGREGATIONALISM 

when he was an undergraduate of the University 
of Cambridge, a young man was appointed ver- 
ger or sexton of the University Church. Many 
years afterwards the Bishop was back again at 
Cambridge, and meeting his friend the verger, 
then an old man, took occasion 4o congratulate 
him that he had held his post there so long. 
" 0, yes/ 7 replied the sexton, " I have heard 
every sermon that has been preached in this 
church for fifty years ; and thank God I am a 
Christian still." Piety in the pew can sometimes 
survive indefiniteness in the pulpit. 

But in the Low Church section, the pulpit is 
quite outspoken. The truth is generally pre- 
sented in a discriminating manner, and very 
many of that class of churchmen command the 
warmest respect and love of all evangelical de- 
nominations, for their fidelity to Christ and zeal 
for the conversion of men. How men cf such 
enlightened views and warm-hearted piety can 
be satisfied with their system of ecclesiastical 
order, is one of those denominational problems 
which baffle all attempts at solution. The incon- 
sistency, however, will not always continue. 

The rising spirit of liberty in the Low Church 
party has been visited with the severe censures 



AND THE SECTS. 101 

of the Bishops, and of their ecclesiastical courts. 
The names of Tyng, of Hubbard, and of Cheney 
will long be held in grateful remembrance for 
their unwavering attachment to principle, in the 
midst of opposition and obloquy. They have 
met the prosecutions to which they have been 
subjected, with a spirit so very like that of the 
martyrs, that they have the sincere sympathy 
and the profound respect of Christians of every 
name. May their eminent devotion to Christ 
and the truth, in their opposition to antiquated 
forms and absurd phraseologies in ministerial 
duty, spread through the entire body of which 
they are such distinguished representatives and 
ornaments ! 

Entrance into the Episcopal Church, whatever 
may be the theory about it, is practically through 
a wide and easily-opened door. The rite of Con- 
firmation is the broad gateway ; and almost any 
amount of fashion, and splendor, and worldly 
taste can be taken along without much protest. 
That rite is often administered to persons who 
do not profess to be regenerate, in the evangeli- 
cal sense ; and once within the church by the ap- 
probation of a Bishop, even of the laxest views, 
the unhumbled professor congratulates himself 



108 ORTHODOX CONGREGATIONALISM 

that he has escaped from the rigid requirements 
of Orthodox Congregationalism, and that he is 
now safely on the road to heaven. Many Epis- 
copalians hold that the church is rather a school 
for conversion, if any conversion is needed ; Con- 
gregationalists maintain that it is needed in all 
cases, and that it must take place prior to ad- 
mission. 

But we desire to do our Episcopal brethren, as 
well as others, the most exact justice, and we 
therefore quote some of their highest authorities. 
" The Order of Confirmation," both in the Eng- 
lish and American Prayer Books, runs as follows : 
" To the end that Confirmation may be admin- 
istered to the more edifying of such as shall re- 
ceive it, the church hath thought good to order, 
That none hereafter shall be confirmed, but such 
as can say the Creed, the Lord's Prayer, and the 
Ten Commandments, and can also answer to such 
other questions, as in the short Catechism are 
contained." The rubric also affirms, that " None 
shall be admitted to the Holy Communion but 
those who have received confirmation, or who 
are ready and desirous to be confirmed." The 
Eight Reverend George M. Randall, D. D., Bish- 
op of Colorado, and formerly of Boston, holds 



AND THE SECTS. 109 

that " Confirmation is a part of that divine sys- 
tem which God hath ordained for the renovation 
of human nature." He also goes one step be- 
yond his Prayer Book, — thus leaving the ques- 
tion open whether he or the Prayer Book is right, 
— and declares that the candidate " must have a 
true desire to become a disciple of Christ." But 
how can a man have a " true desire " to become 
a Christian, till he is a Christian ? The Rev. 
David Greene Haskins also says, " Confirmation 
is absolutely indispensable to the renewal of the 
heart." 

Here are five of the best Episcopal authorities, 
and putting them all together we find that " re- 
generation," in the orthodox evangelical sense, is 
not an indispensable prerequisite either to " Con- 
firmation " or the " Holy Communion ; " that 
any persons can be " confirmed," who, having ar- 
rived at the proper age, can " say the Creed, the 
Lord's Prayer and the Ten Commandments," and 
answer a few easy questions in the " Catechism." 
Now this is a very facile method of getting into 
the church. It can be done by all persons who 
have reached "the age of thirteen," or "the age 
of puberty," or "the years of discretion," whether 
they have been regenerated or not. The authori- 



110 ORTHODOX CONGREGATIONALISM 

ties differ as to the precise time when persons 
should be " confirmed," just as they do about 
other points of infinitely greater importance ; but 
if you are a candidate, you have only to live on, 
and you will certainly grow into the Episcopal 
Church in full standing at a very early age. 

But what say the Low Church or Evangeli- 
cal party, — and Bishop Eandall and Mr. Has- 
kins are themselves "Low Church/' — to this 
worldly method of swelling the number of their 
communicants, and to this easy method of enter- 
ing into the kingdom of Heaven ? Is this the 
Scriptural mode of entrance into the visible or 
into the invisible church ? But Bishop Randall 
replies, " God hath ordained Confirmation for the 
renovation of human nature ; " and Mr. Haskins 
affirms, that it is " absolutely indispensable to the 
renewal of the heart. 77 According to these high 
authorities, then, " regeneration " is not essential 
to " Confirmation" and the " Holy Communion/ 7 
but no person can be regenerated till after he has 
been " confirmed," andean be regenerated only 
by being "confirmed." It has been said that 
" no man can be made a Christian by Act of 
Parliament," but can it be done any better by 
an " act " of a diocesan Bishop ? To " confirm " 



AND THE SECTS. Ill 

an unconverted man, would seem to be likely to 
confirm Mm forever in Ms sins. But the most 
evangelical of the Episcopal clergy strenuously 
maintain, that a man must be a true Christian 
before he can properly be admitted to " Confirma- 
tion " and the " Holy Communion. " These fam- 
ily differences are of the most serious character, 
and they are utterly irreconcilable upon any cor- 
rect views of Christianity, or upon any correct 
theory of church order. 

But this is not the end of the confusion of 
Episcopal theories. In the Prayer Book we read 
again, that after the baptism of an infant has been 
performed, "Then shall the minister say, Seeing 
now, dearly beloved, that this child is now regen- 
erate," etc., and a little after we read, "Then shall 
the minister say, We yield Thee hearty thanks, 
most merciful Father, that it hath pleased Thee to 
regenerate this infant with Thy Holy Spirit," etc. 
The sense which every honest, unsophisticated 
hearer or reader would naturally put upon the 
word "regenerate," would certainly seem to be 
regenerate in the " evangelical " sense. Many 
Episcopalians do understand it in that sense ; but 
others hold that it is to be taken in an " ecclesi- 
astical " sense, or that the infant is now brought 



112 ORTHODOX CONGREGATIONALISM 

into a new relation to the church ; and others 
again maintain that it is to be understood in a 
a hypothetical " sense, or that the infant is now 
presumptively regenerated. These interpretations 
are clearly evasive and contradictory. Each repu- 
diates the others, and yet Episcopalians of every 
shade are required to use the same Prayer Book, 
though they contradict one another and often do 
violence to their own consciences.* 

Another class of Episcopalians hold, that they 
can put adults, who were not favored with re- 
generation by baptism in infancy, through certain 
manipulating, priestly processes, which will re- 
generate them sufficiently for heaven. The 
Episcopal sect therefore hold at least to five 
different kinds of "regeneration," — the bap- 
tismal, the evangelical, the ecclesiastical, the 
hypothetical, and the sacerdotal. 

This confusion of theories, — this playing fast 

* The Rev. Charles E. Cheney, of Chicago, has recently 
been prosecuted by Bishop Whitehouse, and found guilty 
of omitting the word " regenerate" in the Baptismal Office. 
As an honest man, he could not conscientiously use the term. 
He knew that it would be understood in the common evan- 
gelical sense by nine tenths of his hearers, and all the ter- 
rors of deposition from the ministry could not make him 
violate his convictions of duty, and impose upon his congre- 
gation. 



AND THE SECTS. 113 

and loose with the terms of salvation, — is one 
of the most serious objections to Episcopacy. 
On almost any other subject, such diversity 
of theory might be comparatively pardonable, 
but on this point, — the most momentous ever 
submitted to human consideration, — it can ad- 
mit of no excuse on the part of men claiming to 
be evangelical. And yet probably this very in- 
definiteness of Episcopacy is its special recom- 
mendation to that numerous class, who desire to 
have the way to heaven " made easy/' They 
are glad to have it so, for the inference is, that 
if they cannot be saved by one method they can 
by another. According to the contradictory con- 
structions which Episcopalians themselves put 
upon their Prayer Book, baptism regenerates you 
and it does not regenerate you ; — it is rather 
better to be regenerated before you are "con- 
firmed," but if you are not, " Confirmation " 
will do it for you ; — and if you were not bap- 
tized in infancy and thus regenerated, Episcopal 
priests, by certain esoteric powers which they 
have received by unbroken descent from the apos- 
tles, can supply the deficiency. 

All this confusion of plans arises from the Epis- 
copal theory, that unregenerate men, by some 
8 



114 ORTHODOX CONGREGATIONALISM 

human process or other, can be saved. It amounts 
to this, — if you cannot enter heaven by the 
"door," you can "climb up some other way." 
It is a vain and dangerous attempt to accomplish 
an impossibility. In opposition to this confu- 
sion of theories and of practices, Orthodox Con- 
gregationalists maintain, that "Except a man be 
born again he cannot see the kingdom of God." 
They hold, most strenuously, that no "imposition 
of hands" in "Confirmation;" no impartation 
of a supposed holy esoteric influence by any men, 
however ordained ; no professional finesse ; no 
dialectical legerdemain ; no priestly hocus pocus ; 
and no other opus operatum of Rome, or England, 
or America can renew the human heart, or obvi- 
ate the necessity of its renewal by the Holy 
Ghost. 

Again, Episcopalians are chary of any excite- 
ment upon religion, or politics, or temperance, or 
other social reforms, and the least ripple on the 
surface of their ecclesiastical life is regarded as 
quite unchurchmanlike, and as an approach to 
" Methodist fanaticism." For powerful revivals 
of religion, however pure, very many of them 
have little taste. Their cumbrous ritual would 
then be entirely out of place, — not at all adapted 



AND THE SECTS. 115 

to such active and rapturous movements. A 
Methodist will traverse the continent, while an 
Episcopalian is nicely packing up his gilt-edged 
" Prayer Books," his black and white " surplices," 
and his laundry-smoothed " bands." Such aus- 
pices are most inauspicious for progress. Be- 
sides their extreme formalism, Episcopalians are 
ever looking backward to the Dark Ages, and not 
forward to the glories of the Millennial Day. 
" Priesthoods," says a sagacious observer, "ever 
cling to the formulas of the past, in which they 
live, and move, and have their being ; " and an- 
other writer, no less observant, says, "Ritual- 
ism, subjectively considered, is the soul's own 
product : and it is therefore clung to, and rested 
in, with a deep-felt complacency." * There is little 
hope then from Episcopacy, in its present form 
and spirit, that the hundreds of millions of the 
earth's population will be converted to the spirit- 
ual religion of Jesus Christ. 

Again. The personal bearing of men who are 
high in office, or who are looking for preferment, 
is not always distinguished for the grace of self- 
abnegation, and possibly not always for highest 
grace of manners. Diotrephes would perhaps 
* Wesley and Methodism. By Isaac Taylor, p. 304. 



116 ORTHODOX CONGREGATIONALISM 

have made a better diocesan bishop than Timothy, 
if the primitive churches had any use for such a 
dignitary. What person of close observation has 
not noticed certain tacit claims of superiority, and 
assumptions of precedence, and expectations of 
deference, on the part of some of the bishops of 
the Episcopal Church, which they hold must be 
accorded, not only by their "inferior clergy " but 
by all other clergymen as well ; as if an Episco- 
pal bishop is a mortal of more importance than 
other bishops ! And what intelligent Congrega- 
tionalist has not found his face turning to crim- 
son, to see some descendants of the Puritans obse- 
quiously conceding such claims, and ministers of 
Christ accepting them as matters of right, and 
without a blush or an apology ? Froude says of 
Martin Luther, " In his own genuine greatness, 
he was too humble to draw insolent distinctions 
in his own favor, or to believe that any one class 
on earth is of more importance than any other in 
the eyes of the Great Maker of them all." The 
fact that the Queen is the Head of the Church of 
England, it is said, can be inferred from the de- 
portment of the Lord Bishops of the realm, and 
it is also supposed not to improve the humility 
of their brethren on this side of the water. 



AND THE SECTS. 117 

The Episcopal Church is apparently more sec- 
ular in its tone and spirit, than any other sect 
usually called Evangelical. The injunction of the 
apostle Paul, " Be not conformed to this world/' 
does not seem to form a part of its creed ; for 
theatres, operas, and other places of questionable 
amusement are largely patronized, and are not in- 
terdicted by its public opinion nor by its clergy. 
This is the practice of many Episcopalians, but 
what is their theory about amusements ? In an arti- 
cle on " Confirmation," prepared with great care by 
Bishop Randall, he says a candidate asks, " May 
I not indulge in this or that amusement after. I 
have been confirmed ? " In answer to this ques- 
tion the Bishop says, " Some amusements are 
sinful, and some are not. Neither the Gospel nor 
the Prayer Book furnishes any catalogue of these. 
If you have a supreme desire to lead a godly life, 
the matter of amusements may be safely left to 
the decision of your own conscience." But what 
if the candidate has no "conscience " about it, and 
no " supreme desire to lead a godly life," — what 
then ? As many candidates present themselves 
for "confirmation" on the ground of their "bap- 
tism " in infancy, and are admitted without re- 
generation, a taste for amusements, even of the 



118 ORTHODOX CONGREGATIONALISM 

questionable sort, is not overruled by " confirma- 
tion/ ? and they are afterwards indulged in with- 
out protest but not without scandal. 

Besides, Episcopacy is adapted to the aristo- 
cratic side of human nature, and hence it will 
always be popular with men and women who 
have too much principle to embrace Unitarianism 
or Universalism, and too little religion to meet the 
requirements of Orthodox Congregationalism. 

American Episcopalians do not justify the atroc- 
ities of Whitgift, and Bancroft, and Laud, — 
they do not approve of their relentless persecu- 
tion of our fathers ; but they uphold a system of 
ecclesiastical order which committed those atroci- 
ties, and which, if logically carried out, would do 
it again. The Episcopal Church, in all parts of 
the world, still maintains the same exclusive 
spirit, and must continue to do so, as long as it 
claims to be the only church and its clergy the 
only clergy. When, with authentic histories in 
our hands, we press them for the proof that they 
are "the Church, the whole Church, and nothing 
but the Church, " — we are treated to long homi- 
lies about their connection with the apostles, 
which yield but little light. The evidence is 
hard to find. It is always promised, but it never 



AND THE SECTS. 119 

comes. When Sir Robert Peel was Prime Min- 
ister of Great Britain, a member of the Opposi- 
tion put an uncomfortable question to him, touch- 
ing his political consistency, and his memorable 
reply we commend to the attention of our Epis- 
copal friends : " If," said the Premier, " the hon- 
orable gentleman will put that question to me at 
a proper time, and in a proper place, and with a 
proper spirit, and under proper circumstances, / 
now assure him it will be a long time before I will 
refuse to take it into consideration." Light was 
promised ahead, but it was at a hopeless dis- 
tance off. 

The truth of the matter is, that these claims 
of Episcopacy are the most pretentious and 
groundless which have been made since the 
dawn of history, excepting only and always 
those which Rome set up in 606, when the 
first Pope was crowned. Even Archbishop Cran- 
mer and others who instituted the Church of Eng- 
land, and certainly its creators ought to know, 
did not hold that it had any scriptural support. 
" Cranmer, and most of the original founders of 
the Anglican Church," says Hallam, " so far 
from maintaining the divine and indispensable 



120 ORTHODOX CONGREGATIONALISM 

right of Episcopal government, held bishops and 
priests to be of the same order " * 

These claims are of a more recent date, and 
some people in this country have, in their igno- 
rance of history, obsequiously bowed to them 
quite long enough. When Mr. Webster told 
Chevalier Hulseman, the Austrian ambassador, 
that his master's dominions, compared with the 
United States, are " a mere patch on the earth's 
surface ; ?; and the American backwoodsman, 
who had travelled over the immense empires 
which make up the States of this Union, was 
afraid to go to England lest he should roll out 
of his bed into the ocean ; and when we are teach- 
ing all the world the principles of international 
law, — it is about time we had self-respect enough 
not to go to the Papal or Protestant nations of 
Europe for our ecclesiastical polity. These pre- 
tensions are simply preposterous ; for, as we have 
seen by a variety of evidence, Episcopacy has no 
historical connection whatever with the apostles. 
Several centuries intervened between the apostles 
and the first diocesan bishop, and since that time 
there have been several breaks in the chain, — 

* Constitutional History of England, London edition, 
1870, p. 281. 



AND THE SECTS. 121 

presenting deep fissures, startling hiatuses, and 
yawning chasms, which can never be bridged by 
any human ingenuity. Travel in that direction 
is certainly unsafe. 

It would seem, then, that such exclusiveness 
on the part of the clergy, such want of relation- 
ship to the apostles, and such worldliness on the 
part of many of the laity, offer but small induce- 
ments to Congregationalists who are intelligent 
and who have a " heavenly mind," to join them ; 
nor, in view of their treatment of our fathers, can 
it be done consistently without forgetting a good 
deal of history, or requiring a good deal of re- 
pentance. Has it ever been known, that any per- 
son has left the Orthodox Congregationalists and 
gone to the Episcopalians, for the purpose of get- 
ting into a holier atmosphere ? Has such a 
change ever been made for the purpose of find- 
ing a more spiritual body of Christians ? Has 
it ever been done to promote one's growth in 
grace ? Is not the motive, rather, to find more 
fashionable society, to gratify the pride of life, 
to live under less restraint, to be allowed more 
latitude for amusements ; in short, to be permit- 
ted to have a more worldly religion and get to 
heaven, too ? Let those who have made this 



122 ORTHODOX CONGREGATIONALISM 

change, and those who contemplate making it, 
bring these questions home to their most serious 
consideration. 

But the latest and most refreshing claim of 
Episcopacy, of which we have heard, is, that "it 
is the most liberal and republican polity on the 
face of the earth. ;; The next claim may be that 
the Episcopalians always loved the Pilgrims and 
the Puritans, and that the Mayflower never ar- 
rived at Plymouth. 

Another recommendation of Episcopacy is said 
to be that it offers a snug harbor, — the dolce far 
niente of the Italians, — to Congregationalists who 
wish to escape from the constant calls of charity, 
or who have become somewhat tired of the agita- 
tions resulting from the settlement and dismis- 
sion of pastors, and from the freedom of speech 
and action which is the peculiar glory of our sys- 
tem. It is very much to be regretted, if such a 
respectable sect has the credit of being a harbor 
for indolence, or a refuge from freedom, or a re- 
treat for penuriousness. We are confident that 
this cannot be said of the Low Church party but 
with many grains of allowance, and perhaps with 
no truth at all. But wherever may be its appli- 
cations, it is certain that the free air of heaven is 



AHD THE 123 

better to lire in than an exhausted receiver, — 
that the constant practice of ben 
ally healthful, — that difference of opinion is the 
price we have to pay for freedom, — and that it 
unwise to exchange the free institutions of 
Congregationalism, with all their incidental evils, 
for anotbe: m where it is supposed quiet 

be secured, though at such imm Lib- 

erty has indeed its perils, but it is, after all, a 
thousand fold better than any other state of soci- 
ety. " It is better," too, "to wear out than to 
rust out." 

" But the world does move." While the above 
was being written, intelligence was received that 
Henry Alford, I). D., the Very Rev. the Lean of 
Canterbury, one of the most learned and catholic 
Churchmen in Great Britain, has publicly advo- 
cated the opening of the pulpits of the Estab- 
lished Church to ministers of other churcL 
who, by an ancient law, cannot preach there but 
at the risk of three months' imprisonment ! He 
advocated it on the ground, that according to 
sacerdotal ecclesiastical principles, preaching is 
no peculiar function of clergymen, — that laymen 
as well as clergymen can preach. We are glad 
to see such a specimen of liberality, though it is 



124 ORTHODOX CONGREGATIONALISM 

not based on the true ground, — namely, the equal* 
ity of all Christian ministers before the law of the 
New Testament. Scarcely had this news reached 
this country, when it was announced that this 
distinguished and accomplished dignitary of the 
Church of England is no more. Dean Stanley, 
another of the most liberal men in the English 
Church, we are glad to learn, accepts the theory 
of the late Dean of Canterbury, that the pulpits 
of that church should be opened to all clergymen 
of other evangelical communions. When will 
similar liberality prevail on this side of the At- 
lantic ? 

As to the Presbyterians, a grudge against them 
is just now somewhat popular, especially at the 
West, on account of the " Plan of Union " of 
1801 ; but that partnership was entered into by 
some of the best men in our country, and it has 
produced results of inestimable value to millions 
3f immortal beings. It is true enough that the 
Orthodox Congregationalists paid the principal 
part of the money, and that the Presbyterians 
took the lion's share of the profits. It is true 
enough, that scores and perhaps hundreds of 
Presbyterian churches in the Middle and West- 



AND THE SECTS. 125 

ern States have been nurtured into existence and 
prosperity, by the men and money which were 
furnished by the Congregationalists, and which 
ought, on every principle of fairness, to be Con- 
gregational Churches. And it has been, in some 
instances, true, that churches which have been 
reared by Congregational hands, and ministers 
who have been supported by Congregational 
funds, have been ungrateful to their benefactors, 
and have done not a little to injure Congregation- 
alism and to promote Presbyterianism. But what 
if it were so ? Congregationalism has gained a 
thousand fold more by her noble magnanimity, 
by infusing her popular spirit into Presbyterian- 
ism, and by fitting thousands for heaven, than 
she lost by that arrangement. Men often pay 
too much for denominational narrowness, but 
never too much for the glory of God. 

Presbyterianism was devised in Geneva by 
John Calvin ; brought to Scotland by his dis- 
ciple, John Knox ; was soon introduced into 
England, and afterwards imported into this coun- 
try by the early settlers of the Middle and South- 
ern States. They came from England, from Scot- 
land, the North of Ireland, and Switzerland, where 
that system had been long established, and it has 



126 ORTHODOX CONGREGATIONALISM 

naturally spread from the Atlantic coast, where 
it first appeared, over the same zone westward to 
the Mississippi. Its wide diffusion must be at- 
tributed, in part, to its semi-hierarchical charac- 
ter, which so far forth is gratifying to clerical 
and sessional ambition, and partly to the broad 
extent of country of which it originally took pos- 
session and which it still claims by a sort of pre- 
emptive right. 

So far as dogmatic faith is concerned, the Pres- 
byterian Churches are much more in harmony 
with our own, than with that of any of the Sects. 
Both adopt the Westminster Confession. The 
only difference between the systems lies in the 
form of church government, and, of the two, the 
Congregational polity is decidedl} 7 the most sim- 
ple and democratic* As the logical result of 
the Presbyterian polity, there is, in that commun- 
ion, a somewhat large infusion of the aristocratic 
and hierarchical spirit which Congregationalism 
disapproves. 

For authority, Presbyterians appeal to their 



* "The Presbyterians in England, in the time of James, 
desired a limited monarchy, and the Independents a repub- 
lic." — Lowell Institute Lectures. By Rev. Chandler Rob- 
bins, D. D. p. 325. 



AND THE SECTS. 127 

" Book," — Congregationalisms to the Book of 
books. Presbyterian Churches have each a body 
of lay Elders who were formerly elected for life, 
but under the teaching of Congregational princi- 
ples, they are now, in some cases, chosen for a 
limited term. These Elders, with the Pastor, 
compose the Session, and by them is the govern- 
ment of the church exercised, — members being 
received or excluded b}^ their vote alone. Over 
the Session is the Presbytery, composed of the 
Pastors of the churches in a certain district, and 
an Elder from each church, appointed by the Ses- 
sion. The Presbytery has power to control the 
Sessions and reverse their proceedings, and no 
Pastor can be called and settled without their 
permission. Over the Presbytery is the Synod, 
composed of several Presbyteries, and above the 
Synod is the General Assembly, formed by dele- 
gates from all the Presbyteries in the land. These 
delegates are appointed by the Presbyteries, and 
are always Ministers or Elders. Presbyterianism 
has thus, by its very structure, a tendency to cen- 
tralize all church power in a supreme and final 
tribunal to interpret its standards, to issue 
causes, and to enforce conformity against the 
judgment of individual churches. The people 



128 ORTHODOX CONGREGATIONALISM 

have no voice in the system, except when the 
Elder is first elected. No warrant can be found 
in the Scriptures for these authoritative judica- 
tories, outside of and above the local church. 
Presbyterianism is thus an aristocratic or a semi- 
hierarchical, rather than a truly republican sys- 
tem. Their household terms, such as " courts," 
"judicatories/ 7 "appellate jurisdiction," etc., 
would have sounded as strangely to Paul and 
Timothy, as they do to New Englanders. Such 
terms are unknown to the New Testament. A 
case of discipline, too, which should be quietly 
issued by the church where it occurred, and 
which should hardly be heard of beyond its 
limits, is, by their system, appealed from " Ses- 
sion " to " Presbytery," from "Presbytery" to 
" Synod," and from " Synod" to " General As- 
sembly," till it convulses the whole country, is 
advertised to other nations, and brings scandal 
upon Christianity throughout the world. That 
single fact is enough, it would seem, to destroy 
its claims, as a good church polity, in the view 
of all right-minded men. What there is in that 
system which gives it any popularity, unless it 
be that it gratifies a thirst for power, both in 
clergymen and laymen, it is difficult to perceive. 



AND THE SECTS. 129 

That it is superior to Congregationalism, as a 
system of church government, cannot be pre- 
tended, till it is shown that the Presbyterian 
churches are better than the Orthodox Congrega- 
tional churches ; and that it must yield the palm 
to them, on the crucial point of benevolence and 
self-sacrificing zeal for the salvation of men at 
home and abroad, will probably be conceded so 
long as the missionary statistics of the country 
are open to the inspection of the world. 

Presbyterianism, however, has one grand ad- 
vantage of which it has a right to avail itself, 
and from which Congregationalists may well take 
a lesson ; and that is, it has adhered more unwa- 
veringly to its ancestral faith, and its pulpits are 
more outspoken on the leading points of Calvin- 
ism. There must be some advantage in having 
the " Confession of Faith " always at hand. The 
Westminster Confession is in the Presbyterian 
" Book, " and that "Book "is in the possession of 
most Presbyterian families. But the Confessions 
of the Congregationalists are not in any Hand- 
book of the churches. They are at a distance — 
in the public libraries, or in some dusty volumes 
that are rarely seen, and few know what they 
are. The theological effects of the two practices 
9 



130 ORTHODOX CONGREGATIONALISM 

are widely different, and the balance is certainly 
against us. The results are visible in the pulpit. 
To many New England men, it is grateful to 
hear the plain, the direct presentation of the doc- 
trinal truths of the Bible from the lips of Presby- 
terian ministers, after they have so long observed 
the studied avoidance of doctrinal discussions by 
some Congregational preachers, and have listened 
so long to the philosophic, essays of others. Men 
of the world, — men who do not love the truth, 
— feel a much deeper respect for a clergyman 
who boldly proclaims the faith he professes to 
hold, than for another who does not, and every 
sincere believer feels so, too. But, since the 
"Plan of Union " has been abrogated and slavery 
destroyed, Congregationalism has a fair field both 
at the West and the South, and Presbyterians 
are already complaining of the serious inroads it 
is making upon the ground they have so long held 
by prescription. There is then no reason, if 
Congregationalists are faithful to their antece- 
dents and preach the Gospel with their traditional 
fidelity, why their more popular polity should 
not, within the next half century, be predomi- 
nant from the Hudson to the Sacramento, and 
from Alaska to the Gulf. 



AND THE SECTS. 131 

Third. Certain idiosyncrasies, or traits of mind, 
have given the Sects a temporary advantage. 
Some men love to espouse the weaker side 
against the stronger, and where Congregational- 
ism has been in the ascendant, this taste has 
found gratification in opposing it. Another class 
deem it meritorious to oppose "the standing or- 
der/ ' whatever it may be. This trait in human 
nature has induced large numbers to leave the 
Congregational ranks and join the Sects, which 
were new and less known. They seem to have 
felt that they were " doing God service " to un- 
dermine and overthrow a polity, which had done 
more for themselves and their fathers than arith- 
metic can estimate. This principle is now active- 
ly at work among the Dissenters in England. 
Many of them oppose the " Established Church " 
merely because it is " the standing order ;; of the 
realm, though it is now in the minority ; and this 
taste, though rapidly disappearing, has not yet 
wholly lost its force as against the Orthodox 
Congregational Churches of New England. 

Another class are fascinated with bands and 
surplices, with mitres and tiaras, stoles and ro- 
saries, crosses and crucifixes ; with opera music 
in the house of God ; with loud appeals to their 



132 ORTHODOX CONGREGATIONALISM 

ignorance of biblical interpretation on the river's 
bank ; with the worldly excitement of camp meet- 
ings ; indeed, with anything which gratifies their 
prejudices, captivates their taste, or excites their 
imaginations. They prefer that which is narrow 
to that which is magnanimous ; that which is 
demonstrative to that which is modest ; that 
which flatters to that which alarms ; that which 
rests in forms and not in the substance ; that 
which allows them to be worldly to that which 
would make them holy. 

Now, as an offset to these traits of mind and 
peculiarities of taste, — all of them utterly un- 
worthy to be allowed to determine so serious a 
question as that of changing one's church rota- 
tions, — Orthodox Congregationalism has little to 
offer. Its worship is unostentatious ; its rites are 
simple. It presents no lures to clerical ambition ; 
it has no places to bestow ; no rewards to give. 
It makes no proclamation of itself at " the waters 
of baptism 7; to attract a crowd, nor awakens their 
superstitious awe by lighted candles in the day 
time, nor by mysterious evolutions in the chancel. 
It is not particular whether the altar is in the 
East or the West end of the church, or whether 
the minister faces Jerusalem or Nauvoo, or about 



AND THE SECTS. 133 

the exact inclination of the head in the " Mise- 
rere." " God is a spirit ; and they that worship 
Him, must worship Him in spirit and in truth." 
It offers no temptations to worldliness and pride ; 
makes no appeals to low and sordid motives ; ca- 
ters to no man's prejudices ; panders to none 
of the superstitions of ignorance ; — and these 
facts are among the best proofs that it is "from 
heaven," — that it is not a sect, but the true 
Church of Christ. " The kingdom of God Com- 
eth not with observation ; if they say unto you, 
lo, here ! or lo, there ! go not after them nor follow 
them ; for behold the kingdom of God is within 
you." 

Fourth. The partial unsoundness of some Con- 
gregationalists is an obstacle to success. The 
discussions which occurred some thirty or forty 
years ago touching the origin and nature of sin, 
the self-determining power of the will, the ability 
of the sinner, the best method of conducting 
revivals of religion, the measure of holiness 
which Christians can reach in the present life, 
and other kindred topics, divided New England 
into " schools," converted Western New York 
into a " burnt district," and swept into some of 
the churches in New England, and especially into 



134 ORTHODOX CONGREGATIONALISM 

some of the infant churches in the Interior, no 
inconsiderable amount of questionable materials. 
The sad effects of those controversies and " new 
measures " have long been visible in the largely- 
qualified Calvinism of the pulpit, — in new defi- 
nitions of old truths, which have emptied them 
of much of their former meaning and neutralized 
much of their power upon the conscience, — in 
attempts to " get up" and conduct revivals by 
human machinery, — in the want of " law work " 
in the experience of new converts, — in the dis- 
position to get along without revivals of religion, 
on the theory that Christians can lift themselves 
into a "higher life," — and, generally, in the 
diminished influence of the clergy, and in a more 
worldly tone of piety in the churches. Orthodox 
Congregationalism "felt the shock," and feels it 
now, while the Sects comparatively escaped, and 
have profited by our misfortunes. That moral 
Barthquake, it is hoped, has at last spent its force, 
and the churches are being gradually righted 
again upon the old foundations. Orthodox Con- 
gregationalism can never flourish if it is not ortho- 
dox. Take away its orthodoxy, and it will become 
like "sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal." 
But what is this " Orthodoxy " ? For more 



AND THE SECTS. 135 

than two centuries, it has been historically known 
and designated by the convenient term ; " Calvin- 
ism. 77 A distinguished professor in one of our 
theological seminaries said to the Congregational 
Council in Boston, in 1865, " We are Calvinists, 
mainly, essentially, in all the essentials of our 
faith ; and the man who, having passed through 
a three years' course of study, — having studied 
the Bible in the original languages, — is not a 
Calvinist, is not a respectable man. 77 

Mr. James Anthony Froude, the historian, in a 
recent lecture on " Calvinism, 77 before the St. An- 
dre w 7 s University, inquired, " How it came to pass 
ihat, if Calvinism is indeed the hard and unrea- 
sonable creed which modern enlightenment de- 
clares it to be, it has possessed such singular 
attractions in times past for some of the greatest 
men that ever lived. It is enough to mention the 
name of William the Silent, of Luther, — for on 
the points of which I am speaking Luther was 
one with Calvin, — and of your own Knox and An- 
drew Melville, and the Regent Murray, of Colig- 
ny, of our English Cromwell, of Milton, of John 
Bunyan. These were men possessed of all the 
qualities which give ability and grandeur to hu- 
man nature, — men whose life was as upright as 



136 ORTHODOX CONGREGATIONALISM 

their intellect was commanding, and their public 
aims untainted with selfishness; unalterably just 
where duty required them to be stern, but with 
the tenderness of a woman in their hearts ; frank, 
true, cheerful, humorous, — as unlike sour fanat- 
ics as it is possible to imagine any one, and able 
in some way to sound the key-note to which 
every brave and faithful heart in Europe instinc- 
tively vibrated. Whatever exists at this moment 
in England and Scotland of conscientious fear of 
doing evil, is the remnant of the convictions 
which were branded by the Calvinists into the 
people's hearts." 

In conclusion, Mr. Froude said, " Calvinism is 
the spirit which, as I have shown you, has ap- 
peared, and re-appeared, and in due time will 
appear again, unless God be a dream, and man be 
as the beasts that perish. For it is but the in- 
flashing upon the conscience of the nature and 
origin of the laws by which mankind are governed, 
— laws which exist, whether we acknowledge 
them or whether we deny them, and will have 
their way, to our weal or woe, according to the 
attitude in which we please to place ourselves 
towards them, — inherent, like the laws of gravi- 
ty, in the nature of things, not made by us, not 



AND THE SECTS. 137 

to be altered by us, but to be discerned and 
obeyed by us at our everlasting peril. The moral 
law is inherent in eternity. ' Heaven and earth 
shall pass away, but my word shall not pass 
away.' The law is the expression of the will of 
the Spirit of the Universe. The spirit in man 
which corresponds to and perceives the Eternal 
Spirit is part of its essence, and immortal as it is 
immortal. The Calvinists called the eye within 
us the inspiration of the Almighty. What the 
thing is which we call ourselves, we know not. 
It may be true, — I, for one, care not if it be, — 
that the descent of our mortal bodies may be 
traced through an ascending series to some glu- 
tinous jelly formed on the rocks of the primeval 
ocean. It is nothing to me how the Maker of 
me has been pleased to construct the organized 
substance which I call my body. It is mine, but 
it is not me. The intellectual spirit, being an 
essence, we believe to be an imperishable some- 
thing, engendered in us from a higher source. 
As Words worth says, — 



1 Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting; 
The soul that rises in us, our life's star, 
Hath elsewhere had its setting, 
And cometh from afar; 



138 ORTHODOX CONGREGATIONALISM 

Not in entire forgetfulness, 

Not in utter nakedness, 
But trailing clouds of glory do we come 
From heaven, which is our home. , " 

This system of faith is the ancestral Faith of 
New England y and it must be fully re-established 
among us, and the thorough piety, which is its 
natural exponent, must be fully restored, or the 
power and glory of these churches will depart, 
and ought to depart. The rising churches at the 
West, which, in their weakness and desire to in- 
corporate into their fellowship as large a number 
as possible to help them support the Gospel, have 
reduced the stringency of their creeds to make 
them more acceptable, must review and reverse 
that policy if they would advance the cause of 
Orthodox Congregationalism. Orthodoxy is never 
made stronger by heterodoxy. Most of the Sects 
have not insisted on such soundness of faith, as 
has been our traditional distinction. Upon their 
plan of counting numbers, they may reduce their 
terms of admission, but Orthodox Congregation- 
alists, never. They may afford it, — we cannot. 
To do it, is to repudiate our history, and sell our 
birthright. 

Some of the Congregational churches in the 



AND THE SECTS. 139 

Western States, especially in the smaller settle- 
ments, have an unenviable notoriety for the lax- 
ness of their faith and discipline. Presbyterians 
and others have pointed to them as the true rep- 
resentatives of Orthodox Congregationalism, and 
have thence drawn most unfavorable inferences 
against the system. Argument, reproach, sar- 
casm and innuendo have been freely used to bring 
it into contempt, and to impede its progress. Con- 
gregationalism has lost, and Presbyterianism has 
gained ground, by this untoward condition of 
our ecclesiastical affairs in the Interior. It is 
however true, that there is a diversity of judg- 
ment respecting the soundness of the churches at 
the West, and so there is about the soundness of 
the churches at the East. What is true of one 
locality, in each of these great divisions, may not 
be true of others. What some men, too, would 
call soundness in. both, may be, according to the 
accepted Confessions, unsoundness in both. With- 
out attempting to mete out the precise quantum 
of error which exists either at the East or the 
West, it will probably be admitted, that if meas- 
ured by the standards of Westminster, of the Sa- 
voy, of Cambridge, and of Saybrook, there will 
be found enough to correct in both sections of 



140 ORTHODOX CONGREGATIONALISM 

the country. Intelligent and orthodox men at 
the East and at the West should then resolutely 
set themselves to the work of rectifying this evil 
wherever it exists, and in whatever measure it 
may exist ; and thus remove a stumbling-block to 
the progress of that System of Faith which enjoys 
the traditional honor of being the " best abused/' 
because the most thorough and discriminating of 
any in Christendom. " Trees that bear the best 
fruit are stoned the most/ 7 and Orthodox Congre- 
gationalism may well glory in the fact, that no 
system of doctrine has ever awakened, in an equal 
degree, the hostility of sceptics of every grade, 
as that of which it has been a prominent custo- 
dian and exponent from the beginning. 

Closely connected with this unfortunate division 
of the Orthodox Congregationalists into "schools/' 
is its danger of sub-division into cliques, where 
a few individuals who have a taste for manage- 
ment, can figure and gratify their ambition at 
the expense of brotherly love and denominational 
progress. Congregationalism is based on that 
fundamental principle, — "all ye are brethren." 
Cliques are parasites on the body politic, and if 
allowed their course, will ultimately destroy the 
body itself. Popery can never flourish in our 



AND THE SECTS. 141 

free system of church order. Brotherly love, 
clerical parity, soundness of faith, a holy walk 
with God, frequent revivals of religion, and ear- 
nest consecration to the work of evangelizing the 
world, have been the leading traits of Orthodox 
ministers and Christians from the beginning ; and 
if these churches are to prosper and perform their 
legitimate mission in the world, these traits must 
be conspicuously prominent in all their future 
career. 

The especial point where we are just now in 
the greatest danger of failing, both at the East 
and the West, is in the qualified tone of a part of 
the Congregational pulpit upon the fundamental 
doctrines of Christianity, and particularly upon 
the eternity of future punishment. The secret ten- 
dencies of the day are towards Universalism, and 
the next great development of error will quite 
likely be in that direction. To counteract these 
tendencies, the universal, the ever-present, the 
alarming fact of sin should be constantly r?cog- 
nized, and made the starting-point of all homileti- 
cal instruction. The only hope of redemption 
from its power and destructive consequences, 
the grand panacea of the Gospel, — the expiation 
of the Cross of Jesus Christ, — should also be 



142 ORTHODOX CONGREGATIONALISM 

a standing theme of the ambassadors of Heaven. 
The pulpit, then, should present the lost condition 
of men, and the terms of salvation, — namely, 
repentance for sin, faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, 
and supreme love to God, — with great exactness 
of statement, and great frequency. It should 
also be done with that peculiar tone and manner, 
which says that it is not done in the discharge of 
a mere formal, professional duty, but with the 
irrepressible anxiety of men who know that they 
stand "between the living and the dead," and 
who, by their holy earnestness, electrify their 
audiences, and make them conscious of it, too. 
If the preaching of the day does not persistently 
press upon all men the alarming fact that they 
are sinners, and press it till they feel sin to be a 
burden, and see hi it their ruin ; if it does not 
show them that, however perfect their ability and 
obligation, such is their utter alienation from God, 
they will never save themselves, and that He 
must do it or they will perish ; if it fails to pre- 
sent to their view the atonement of Christ as the 
only ground of hope, till, in the extremity of their 
self-despair, they lift the eye of trust to " the 
Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the 
world," and with a "broken heart" accept sal- 



AND THE SECTS. 143 

vation upon God's own terms ; if it does not teach 
them that though the question of their salvation 
or ruin was settled in the Divine Mind long be- 
fore they were born, they are still perfectly free 
and accountable, and that if they go to perdition 
it will be purely their own fault; if it does not 
put them into this close condition between per- 
fect obligation and entire dependence and keep 
them there, they will never learn " the plague of 
their hearts/ 7 nor die to sin, nor cast themselves, 
helpless and lost, upon Christ for salvation. The 
preaching of Calvin, of Edwards, of Whitefleld, 
of Payson, of Nettleton, put men into this vise 
and held them there from Sabbath to Sabbath, till 
great numbers, perceiving their utterly ruined 
condition, gave up the contest and submitted 
themselves unconditionally to God. Does all 
that now passes for Orthodox preaching produce 
that awakening and humbling effect ? Are sin- 
ners now " slain by the law/' as a necessary pre- 
cedent to being made " alive ;? by the Gospel ? 
Have they an " experience " which they can in- 
telligently narrate, and which instantly convinces 
every well-informed Christian that they have 
"passed from darkness into marvellous light ? " 
There is a very general conviction, that though 



144 ORTHODOX CONGREGATIONALISM 

much of the preaching of the day is not heretical, 
it is far from, being thorough ; that twenty ser- 
mons are now preached by some clergymen on 
the Human side of religion to one on the Divine 
side ; and that the changes are now so inces- 
santly rung on the " Fatherhood of God " and 
the " Manhood of man," that they would seem to 
be new discoveries, and about the whole of theol- 
ogy. If the preaching of some of the fathers 
wore too stern an aspect, is not that of the pres- 
ent clay too feebly assertive of the great truths 
of Christianity ? Has not the philosophy taken 
possession of some part of the Orthodox pulpit, 
that the greater culture of our times requires not 
only greater taste in the literary qualities of the 
sermon, but great caution, too, in presenting the 
repulsive truths of the Bible ; and does not that 
caution, in some cases, amount to a prohibition 
of them altogether ? Is not the pulpit now ten- 
derer of the sinner's rebellion than the Bible per- 
mits, and does it not make the conditions of sal- 
vation easier than the Scriptures make them 
to be? 

But the great doctrines of the Bible are invari- 
able quantities. They are incapable of either 
addition or subtraction. They are not modified 



AND THE SECTS. 145 

by the changes of society. The native moral 
condition of men is always the same. The con- 
ditions of salvation are always the same. The 
change required is always the same. No im- 
provement of society, no progress in refinement, 
no perfection of culture, can work the least 
change in these great facts. Human apprehen- 
sions and statements of these facts may admit, 
occasionally perhaps, of some slight improve- 
ment, but those improvements must be very 
few and confined within very narrow limits, or 
they will affect the integrity of the facts them- 
selves. To suppose that the facts themselves 
can be changed, involves the latitudinarian as- 
sumption, that what is sound theology to one 
generation may not be sound to the next, and 
so on ad infinitum. This theory, logically car- 
ried out to its consequences, makes all attempts 
to give a written revelation to the world futile, 
destroys all faith, and launches all men upon the 
broad ocean of scepticism and unbelief. 

Holding fast then the doctrines of Christian- 
ity, substantially as they are stated in the ac- 
cepted symbols, they should be presented in 
their beautiful symmetry. The Bible appeals 
to both the hopes and the fears of men. The 
10 



146 ORTHODOX CONGREGATIONALISM 

love of Christ, in all its unexampled tenderness, 
and the danger of perdition, in. all its fearful 
magnitude, should be pressed upon the attention 
of men " night and day with tears. " If the Gos- 
pel be not preached in its breadth, and compre- 
hensiveness, and fullness, it will make an ill- 
balanced, and of course a defective piety, and 
will fail, more or less, of the great end for 
which it was designed. A judicious preacher 
will sweep the entire scale of Revelation, and, 
with appropriate touch, bring out the grand har- 
monies of the whole system of truth. The suc- 
cess of Orthodox Congregationalism depends on 
its reaching and satisfying this dssideratum of 
all the Christian ages. 

That preaching which dwells disproportionate- 
ly on the Human side of theology, — which deals 
principally with the sweet charities of life, — 
which magnifies culture and aesthetics at the ex- 
pense of the Cross, will logically and necessarily 
become apologetic of the sinner's moral charac- 
ter, will be more and more demanded by a lux- 
urious age, and will gradually degenerate into 
Universalism ; and unless that philosophy be ex- 
changed for a sounder one, and the ministry and 
the churches perceive, in season, the direction in 



AND THE SECTS. 147 

which we are perhaps insensibly drifting, and re- 
turn to that faith which was the cause of the 
purest and most powerful Revivals of Religion 
which have distinguished our history, " Icha- 
bod" may be written on our prospects. But a 
better destiny is before us. "The Lord knoweth 
them that are His." There are grounds for the 
most confident faith, that the King of Zion, who 
has wrought such wonders by these churches for 
nearly three centuries, has still an important mis- 
sion for them to perform in the world, — a mis- 
sion which will far outshine in lustre the glorious 
record of the past, — so that " the light of the 
moon shall be as the light of the sun, and the 
light of the sun shall be seven fold." 

Fifth. Immigration has largely increased the 
numbers of the Sects. The statistics of the immi- 
gration of foreigners into this country are easily 
accessible, but they do not show the doctrinal or 
denominational preferences of the comers. With- 
out pretending to arithmetical accuracy, it is un- 
questionably certain, that nearly all of them be- 
long to the Sects. There are but few Orthodox 
Congregational communities in Europe, and none 
in Asia or Africa to enlarge our numbers, but to 
some of the Sects, immigration is an unfailing 



148 ORTHODOX CONGREGATIONALISM 

and liberal source of help. Roman Catholics, 
Presbyterians, Episcopalians, Methodists, Bap- 
tists, Lutherans, are crowding into this country 
from Europe in vast numbers, and are adding 
largely to those denominations. There is little 
hope that Congregationalism will ever be able to 
compete with them by such enormous aggrega- 
tions from abroad, and its mission, in the Provi- 
dence of God, seems to be to convert these 
foreigners from " the error of their ways/ 7 by 
presenting for their acceptance a better polity, 
a sounder faith, a broader catholicity, and a 
holier life. It is quite unnecessary to extend 
remarks upon this point, as it must be evident 
at once to every reflecting observer, that immi- 
gration is probably the principal cause of the 
comparative increase of some of the Sects in this 
country. 



AND THE SECTS. 149 



CHAPTER THIRD. 

THINGS TO BE DONE TO PROMOTE ORTHODOX 
CONGREGATIONALISM. 

It is a question of great practical interest, 
What can be done by Orthodox Congregational- 
ists to extend their Faith and Polity ? We can- 
not descend to the low level of some of the Sects, 
and appeal to worldly motives to help us spread 
a spiritual religion. Nor can we improve our 
Faith ; for, what with the oft-quoted remark of 
Robinson, comparatively but slightly applicable 
to the present time, about " more light breaking 
forth from the Word/' or the current flippant 
talk about "the improvements of science," and 
"growth," and "keeping up with the age," — 
our doctrinal belief, in any of its essential fea- 
tures, cannot be changed. Never before was the 
adage so pertinent, that " whatever is new in 
theology is not true, and whatever is true is not 
new." Our Faith is the crystallized result of 
eighteen centuries of earnest prayer and pro- 



150 ORTHODOX CONGREGATIONALISM 

found study of the Scriptures. That Faith is 
therefore substantially settled for all time. Nor 
can our Polity be essentially improved. It is 
the freest, the most popular polity known to 
men, and it needs no special improvement to 
meet the exigencies of the case. What, then, is 
to be done ? 

One practical thing is, to improve our mode of 
Public Worship. The people must have some- 
thing to do in the House of God. Many of them 
are now mere spectators, or, at best, mere listen- 
ers, when they should be earnest participators in 
the services. This striking defect in the worship 
of the Sanctuary has long been felt and lamented, 
and various attempts have been made to remedy 
the evil, but with indifferent success. The scrip- 
tural idea of worship seems to have fallen quite 
out of the public mind ; but it must be revived, 
and come to be regarded as the principal object 
of the services of the Ilouse of Prayer. 

There is doubtless some kind of service, and 
some order of service, which are, logically and 
philosophically, better than any other, but the 
practice has of late become so mixed, that scarce- 
ly any two congregations proceed exactly alike. 
This is a matter of great practical inconvenience 



AND THE SECTS. 151 

and of great spiritual loss, and it is hoped that 
the present efforts for improvement will result in 
the discovery of the best services, and the best 
order of the services. Our polity is certainly flex- 
ible enough to admit of such changes as will more 
fully meet the public taste, give the people some- 
thing to do, and yet save the churches from the 
danger of a cold and formal ritualism, which, in 
the Public Worship of God, is of all things the 
most to be deprecated. The plan here proposed, 
if adopted, it is believed will have no tendencies 
towards Episcopacy. So long as we hold to the 
completeness and independence of each local 
church, there can be no danger from the intro- 
duction of a few changes in the order and kind 
of service. Even the use of a liturgy, by a Con- 
gregational church, could have no essential con- 
nection with the Episcopacy of America, of Eng- 
land, or of Rome. 

The following suggestions are submitted with 
great deference. On being seated in the House 
of God, let every person bow the head for a mo- 
ment, in silent prayer for help. A Voluntary on 
the organ is also appropriate while the congrega- 
tion are assembling. What, then, is the next 
most natural thing to be done ? It is not the 



152 ORTHODOX CONGREGATIONALISM 

reading of a short passage of the Scriptures, nor 
the singing of a Doxology, but it is the Invoca- 
tion of both the Pastor and the People for Divine 
aid. That aid is needed just as much in the read- 
ing of a short passage or in a Doxology, as in 
any of the subsequent services. Let the Invoca- 
tion be closed by repeating the Lord's Prayer, 
the congregation repeating it in connection with 
the Pastor. Let that be followed by congrega- 
tional Singing, the whole audience standing. 
Then let the Scriptures be read, and followed 
by the repetition of the Apostles 7 Creed, the De- 
scent into Hell being omitted, as that was inter- 
polated by a later hand. A repetition of that 
Creed in the matin services of the House of God, 
would be a proper avowal of the religious Faith 
of the congregation as the foundation of their 
worship for the day, and beautifully appropriate, 
too, as it is fragrant with the aroma of the very 
morning of Christianity. Let this be followed by 
Prayer ; then with singing a Psalm or Hymn ap- 
propriate to the sermon, the congregation stand- 
ing ; then the Sermon ; to be followed by Sing- 
ing, the congregation standing ; and the services 
closed by a short Prayer and the Benediction, the 



AND THE SECTS. 153 

congregation sitting ; and then leaving the house 
with great quietness and reverence. 

In the Afternoon Service, — for that service 
should never yield its place to the Sabbath School 
or Bible Class, — after a Voluntary on the organ, let 
a few verses be read from the Scriptures, followed 
by the repetition by all the congregation, of the 
Ten Commandments, or the Beatitudes, or one of 
the Psalms of David. This would necessitate the 
revival of the good old practice of the fathers, of 
having the Bible in the hands of all the congrega- 
tion. Let this be followed by Singing, the audi- 
ence uniting and standing ; by Prayer, the audience 
sitting ; by Singing again, the congregation uni- 
ting and standing ; by the Sermon ; by Singing, 
as before ; and by Prayer and the Benediction. 

The Order of Service would then stand as fol- 
lows : — 

Morning. 

1. Voluntary on the Organ. 

2. Invocation by the Pastor, the congregation 
repeating the Lord's Prayer with him. 

3. Singing by the congregation, standing. 

4. Reading of the Scriptures, followed by the 
repetition of the Apostles' Creed, sitting. 

5. Praver, sitting. 



154 ORTHODOX CONGREGATIONALISM 

6. Singing appropriate to the Discourse by the 
congregation, standing. 
1 Sermon. 

8. Singing by the congregation, standing. 

9. Prayer and Benediction. 

Afternoon. 

1. Voluntary on the Organ. 

2. Keading the Scriptures, followed by the Ten 
Commandments, the Beatitudes, or one of the 
Psalms of David, repeated by the congregation. 

3. Singing by the congregation, standing, or 
chanting by the choir. 

4. Prayer, the congregation sitting. 

5. Singing by the congregation, standing. 

6. Sermon. 

7. Singing by the congregation, standing. 

8. Prayer and Benediction, congregation sitting. 

As another means of promoting Orthodox Con- 
gregationalism, let a special effort be made by the 
Pulpit and the Press to tone up the doctrinal faith 
of the churches to the high level of the Confes- 
sions of 1G48 and 1G80. Those Confessions, — 
the Cambridge and the Savoy, — were solemnly 
and unanimously avouched to be the Faith of the 



AND THE SECTS. 155 

Congregational Body, by the General Council held 
in Boston in 1865. If that unanimous vote was 
adopted in good faith, this would seem to be 
natural and easy work. Let the suicidal infat- 
uation of depreciating creeds — that self-stultifi- 
cation of Orthodox men, which has been of late 
so largely the business of a part of the Congrega- 
tional Ministry and Press, under whatever pretence 
of " growth " or " improvement " — now cease 
and determine ; and let them imitate the more ra- 
tional course of the Presbyterian clergy and press, 
and elevate the public faith to the high plane of 
the acknowledged standards. 

Several of the Sects have the Congregational 
polity as well as ourselves. We taught it to the 
Baptists, the Unitarians, the Universalists, the 
Swedenborgians, and many other sects, and on 
that ground we cannot prefer any superior claims 
to the public confidence. But we can do it on 
another ground. We are distinguished from all 
others by the greater purity of our doctrinal be- 
lief, by a broader catholicity, by a more munifi- 
cent liberality, and, we trust, by a more intelligent 
type of piety. It was a providential coincidence, 
that, just at the time our fathers were forming our 
polity, they were doing a much nobler work, by 



156 ORTHODOX CONGREGATIONALISM 

cultivating with remarkable assiduity greater 
personal holiness, and digesting our dogmatic 
faith into a scientific creed. The Westminster 
Confession of Faith, which Cotton of Boston, 
Hooker of Hartford, and Davenport of New 
Haven were invited over the ocean to aid in 
forming, was sanctioned by the British Parliament 
in 1643, the Cambridge Platform was constructed 
in 1648, the Savoy Confession in 1680, and the 
Say brook Platform in 1708. No denomination 
on earth has wrought out its Faith with such per- 
sistent and elaborate care. It is the accumulated 
thought of ages, and should be preserved with the 
most religious fidelity. In its eminent purity, 
then, and in its earnest, clear and constant en- 
forcement in the family, in the school, in the pul- 
pit, by the wayside, and in our literature, consists 
the assurance of our ultimate success. Here is 
"the hiding of our power." Such a Faith nat- 
urally leads to a holy life, and not only so, but 
to a life of benevolence, of activity and of con- 
secration, correlative with its own superior excel- 
lence. The love of Christ " shed abroad in the 
heart " by the Holy Ghost, consciously felt there 
day by day and cultivated with assiduous and in- 
telligent care, is the normal root and life of Ortho- 



AND THE SECTS. 15? 

dox Congregationalism. No man is an Orthodox 
Congregationalist, in the full sense of that term, 
till he has a hope of heaven which is the result 
of that love in his soul. That is the end to be 
gained, and if that be not reached and secured, 
all Polity and Faith, however correct, are of little 
worth. Some of the Sects can count up large 
numbers by their peculiar mode of computation, 
and be successful in their way without this fer- 
vent piety, but it is the merest travesty of all cor- 
rect views of church progress. 

But to give a new and a constantly increasing 
impulse to Orthodox Congregationalism, we must 
also enjoy the special influence of the Holy Spirit in 
the churches. Revivals of Religion, of great 
purity and power, have been from the beginning 
the life and the prosperity of these churches, and 
we must depend on them for success in all time 
to come. " Except the Lord build the house, they 
labor in vain that build it." Eevivals must not 
be decried by the deceitful plea, that we should 
uniformly live in an elevated religious frame. No 
Christian ever did live so, and none ever will, in 
this imperfect state. Nor should they be under- 
valued because there is some chaff among the 
wheat, for "■ what is the chaff to the wheat, saith 



158 ORTHODOX CONGREGATIONALISM 

the Lord ? ;? Nor, again, should they be ignored 
on the ground that Christians can lift themselves 
up into " the higher life/ 7 All such attempts are 
unphilosophical as well as unscriptural, for the 
action and reaction are equal. On that theory, no 
progress is made heavenward but backward. Be- 
sides, without the special presence of the Holy 
Spirit not a single sinner can be converted to 
Christ. How then, without His help, can the 
thirteen hundred millions that people the earth 
from generation to generation, be saved ? Chris- 
tianity was inaugurated in a revival of religion ; 
every step of its progress has been marked by re- 
vivals ; and its rate of progress has been in the 
exact ratio of the power of the revivals. If 
Orthodox Congregationalists, then, desire to know 
by what means they can be successful, here is the 
fundamental answer. They have no bars to be 
pulled down to make their practice more liberal 
towards other evangelical communions. All truly 
Christian ministers, of every name, are cordially 
welcomed to their pulpits; and all truly Christian 
men, and women, and children, of every name, are 
cordially welcomed to their communion tables. 
Their Faith and Polity need no particular im- 
provement, — but they need, alwaj's and every- 



AND THE SECTS. 159 

where, the special influence of the Holy Ghost 
to convert the thoughtless, and to complete their 
own sanctification. 

It is high time, too, that the churches inaugu- 
rate more comprehensive and aggressive movements 
for the conversion of the world, — movements on 
a far grander scale, — movements which shall ap- 
proximate the magnitude of the work to be done. 
What churches can better be expected to enter at 
once on a mission so imperative and so vast ? 
Who will undertake it if they do not ? Their own 
prosperity, and the speedy salvation of our race, 
both demand it at their hands. 

Another most important means of promoting 
Orthodox Congregationalism is the formation of 
the best Social Life. Man is made for society. 
His most influential relations are of the social 
kind. Such is the intense love of personal free- • 
dom on the part of Congregationalists, that their 
social life is, in a measure, sacrificed to an extreme 
individualism. This order of things must be re- 
versed. That individualism must yield to the 
higher claims of a more cordial and elevated so- 
cial status. 

Some of the Sects have a social life of very 
marked characteristics. The Episcopalians have 



160 ORTHODOX CONGREGATIONALISM 

such a life, and it is peculiar to themselves, and so 
have the Methodists. But the peculiarities of 
both are undesirable. The social characteristics 
of the Episcopalians are of the aristocratic cast, 
those of the Methodists are democratic, and border 
closely upon the rustic. The Episcopal social 
life is exclusive, — that of the Methodists is in- 
clusive. Both are somewhat clannish ; both lack 
breadth. Neither of them is truly catholic, or 
presents the highest type of manners. All per- 
sons from other denominations who join the Epis- 
copalians, are always regarded, and always must 
be regarded, as "converts," "neophytes/ 7 "new 
comers/ 7 — bringing with them plebeian blood, 
which is quite unworthy to be mingled with that 
of the original stock, who claim to have "the 
blood of all the Howards/ 7 The original class 
regard themselves " as nobles by the right of an 
earlier creation/ 7 just as the old aristocracy of 
Great Britain, who date their titles at the Conquest, 
regard themselves as quite superior to any new 
batch which are created by the Crown to serve 
some political purpose. Converts to Episcopacy 
must then expect, as the price of their conver- 
sion, to occupy back seats, or to stand a little out 
in the cold, in the social life which they have 



AND THE SECTS. 161 

vainly attempted to enter. Whether they are 
clergymen or laymen, they are not admitted to 
full communion in social intercourse. For the in- 
crease of numbers and the payment of the bills, 
they are cordially welcomed ; for other purposes, 
they are tolerated. 

But to persons of refined sensibilities, to be 
tolerated, awakens a keener sense of humiliation 
than to be proscribed. When a man is proscribed, 
he can boldly maintain his rights, and assert his 
equality with, or his superiority to, his antago- 
nists ; but when he is tolerated, it is because he 
has placed himself at a disadvantage, parted with 
his independence, and bereft himself of his weap- 
ons, — and he must for life pocket the neglect 
as best he may. 

Orthodox Congregationalists need a more re- 
fined, a more magnanimous social state, than either 
of those which have been mentioned ; a life from 
which all the undesirable traits of Methodism and 
Episcopacy are excluded, a life of more real intel- 
ligence, of a more generous culture, of a heartier 
Christian spirit, of a broader catholicity, of a sin- 
cerer geniality ; in short, a refinement, such as 
will obtain in the very best days towards which 
the churches are hastening. If Congregational- 
11 



162 ORTHODOX CONGREGATIONALISM 

ists will lay aside all inconsistent habits, and cul- 
tivate with all assiduity, and in the fear and love 
of God, this unexceptionable civilization, — this 
supreme refinement of manners, — this highest 
social life, — they will become the model churches 
of Christendom, and their prosperity will be as- 
sured. 



AND THE SECTS. 163 



CONCLUSION. 

Orthodox Congregationalism has a noble rec- 
ord. From the start, it has been the friend of 
freedom, the friend of education, the friend of 
revivals, the friend of missions. It suggested 
our republican form of government. It has 
scattered the seeds of freedom over both hem- 
ispheres. It founded our system of common 
schools. It reared all our older and many of 
our more recent colleges.* It has sent the 
schoolmaster and the schoolmistress to all sec- 
tions of the country. It was the pioneer in 
home and foreign missions. It laid the founda- 
tion of our eleemosynary institutions. It devised 
the famous " Pledge " which is working out the 
Temperance reformation. It did its full share to 
overthrow Slavery at the South. It has prayed 
down the Holy Spirit upon the nation, guided 



* Cl The Puritans of Massachusetts are said to have been 
the first men who ever gave their own money to found a 
place of education." — Edward Everett's Speech at the 
Celebration in 1836. 



164 ORTHODOX CONGREGATIONALISM 

anxious thousands to " the Lamb of God," and 
matured the sanctification of a great multitude 
now "before the Throne. " 

The Fathers of New England who brought 
this Faith and Polity to these shores, have been 
denounced, without stint or measure, for their 
" illiberality " and " strictness," but of late this 
tone has been wonderfully changed. All denom- 
inations have recently taken to lauding the Pil- 
grims. We beg leave to enter this circle of 
admirers, and respectfully to say, " Ladies and 
Gentlemen, we are glad to see you honor the 
Pilgrims. You could hardly be engaged in bet- 
ter business. But allow us to suggest, that 
' consistency is a jewel/ While you ' garnish 
their sepulchres/ do you hold their Faith and 
Polity, and do you practise their virtues ? Who 
were these Pilgrims whom you ' delight to 
honor ? ? 

" Were they Baptists ? No. They believed in 
infant baptism, in baptism by sprinkling, and in 
open communion. 

" Were they Presbyterians ? No. They had 
seen enough of Presbytcrianism in England and 
Scotland. 

" Were they Episcopalians ? No. They came 



AND THE SECTS. 165 

to this wilderness, in the dead of winter, to get 
away from Episcopalians. 

" Were they Methodists ? No. John Wesley's 
grandfather was then not born. 

" Were they Unitarians or Universalists ? No, 
no. Such faiths, on this soil, would have awak- 
ened their deepest alarm. 

" Who were they, then ? They were Orthodox 

CONGREGATIONALISTS." * 

In attempting to form a just appreciation of 
the character and principles of the Fathers of 
New England, there is danger of magnifying, 
disproportionately, the mere matter of polity. It 
is much easier to be sticklers for church forms, 
than to hold communion with God. Attention 
to polities is always the most rife in a state of 
religious declension. The special presence of 
the -Holy Spirit calls attention to a much more 
important concern. When the skies are " pour- 
ing down righteousness," and Christians are 

* " Few persons, if any, can hesitate to agree that no 
other system of church government than Congregationalism 
could have been successful in New England at that day. 
No other system could have done so much for religion, no 
other system could have done so much for liberty, civil 
and religious. Independent churches formed the earliest 
and most enduring barriers and bulwarks at once against 
hierarchies and monarchies." — Oration at Plymouth, De- 
cember 21, 1870. By Hon. Robert C.Winthrop. 



166 ORTHODOX CONGREGATIONALISM 

revived, and the unconverted crying for mercy, 
church polities are little thought of. That fact 
shows that in the coming better days of the 
church, denominations will be quite at a dis- 
count, and perhaps entirely pass away. " The 
dissensions of Christendom," says Schlegel, " God 
only can heal." But He will not heal them by 
miracle, for miracles are not adapted to the work 
to be done. He will not heal them by "a new 
revelation to interpret the old, for, with all rev- 
erence it is written, another effort to be under- 
stood would be no more successful. " * But He 
will do it by giving His children wisdom and 
candor enough to interpret the present Revela- 
tion substantially alike, and such measures of 
His Spirit as will lift them above the narrowness 
of sect, into the region of holy love and sincere 
union. f It is an auspicious indication of His 
providence, that in these latter days Christendom 
is yearning for unity. The great current of pub- 

* " The Oneness of the Christian Church." By the Au- 
thor, p. 43. 

f " My own firm helief is, that every difference of opinion 
among Christians is either remediable by time and mutual 
fairness, or else is indifferent; and this, I believe, would be 
greatly furthered, if we would get rid entirely of the false 
traditional standard of interpretation, and interpret Scripture 
solely by itself." — Life of Thomas Arnold, D. D., p. 2G. 



AND THE SECTS. 167 

lie thought is setting* strongly in that direction. 
Denominationalisms are getting to be mere back- 
ward eddies in the onward progress of Christians 
towards their final unification. Christ founded a 
Church, but He founded no Sect. This single fact 
upsets all polities which are not founded on the 
New Testament. The primitive state of the 
Church is to be reproduced in the Church of the 
Future. Congregationalists are the most truly 
liberal, the most unsectarian, of all the various 
bodies of Christians. Some of them are begin- 
ning to find fault with their brethren for being 
so catholic ; but it is their highest glory. Con- 
gregationalism, then, comes nearer actualizing the 
Ideal of the Great Founder of Christianity than 
any other polity, if it be not, indeed, a fac-simile 
of His conception of the church. What may have 
been the exact form of church order which Christ 
gave to his disciples, during those secret inter- 
views of " forty days ,; after His resurrection, 
when " He gave commandments unto the apos- 
tles," and spake " of the things pertaining to the 
kingdom of God," we do not know, except by 
their fragmentary references to it in their writ- 
ings. The whole matter is therefore resolved 
into a question of interpretation. 



168 ORTHODOX CONGREGATIONALISM 

In the absence of a recognized bottom inter- 
pretation of the New Testament, — the common 
standard of appeal, — an interpretation which is 
the only logical method of settling the question, 
— an interpretation which possibly has not yet 
been fully reached, but which, it is not chimerical 
to expect may yet be reached by the gracious 
dispensation of the Holy Spirit, and a more in- 
telligent and honest study of the Word ; — in the 
absence of such an interpretation, the horoscope 
of the Future can be cast only by a balance of 
probabilities. Is there then any probability that 
a hierarchy or a semi-hierarchy will be the polity 
of the Great Future, when monarchs are bowing 
to plebiscites, and thrones and mitres are swept 
away by popular indignation, like the leaves of 
autumn before the blast ? Every intelligent man 
must answer, No. On the other hand, is there 
not every probability, in the resistless march of 
free principles over the earth, and when power is 
rapidly passing from the hands of a few into the 
hands of the people, that Congregationalism, or 
something very like it, will be the prevailing 
form of Church Order in the Millennium ? Every 
intelligent man, it would seem, must answer, Yes. 
The churches of that enlightened day cannot be 



AND THE SECTS. 169 

heterodox, nor ignorant, nor exclusive, nor aristo- 
cratic churches. They will be churches which 
will need no radical improvement to make them 
fit for the Church of Heaven. In the year of our 
Lord 1920, — three centuries from the Landing 
of the Pilgrims, — when the United States may 
contain One Hundred and Twenty Million of 
souls, — when her territory will extend from 
Ocean to Ocean and from the Tropics to the 
Pole, — when the Free Principles in the Church 
and in the State, brought over in the Mayflower, 
shall have expelled about the last relic of oppres- 
sion from this planet, preparatory to the universal 
reign of Emmanuel, — then will the nations see 
what was the mission of Orthodox Congregational- 
ism in the world. 



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